Old Peculier Casserole

 

It’s almost twenty five years since I first set foot in the John Peel Inn in Bowness on Windermere. It was only supposed to be for a week’s work, but it would be more than three years before I was to finally leave. I’d say my plans have a habit of turning out this way, but that would be to imply that I’ve ever actually had a plan in the first place. On that first day I’d never even heard of Theakston’s Old Peculier (no, not ‘Peculiar’ but ‘Peculier’), a dark strong ale, let alone drunk a pint of it, or ever dreamed of turning it into a casserole. And there was no way I could have known how much water was to flow under those particular bridges in the years that were to come.

My employers were Michael and Vivian, and I owe them both a debt of gratitude for what they taught and gave to me during those three years. From Michael I learned how to cellar fine traditional ales, and how to approach the bar of any four star hotel with insouciance no matter how many unruly golden retrievers I was wrangling at the time. Whilst Vivian taught me not only how to cook, but how to care about my cooking, and that doing so was no bad thing. I have had reason to be grateful for all of these in varying degrees over the years, and if you’re reading this Michael or Vivian, I thank you.

In the pub kitchen we’d make great batches of Old Peculier Casserole with forty pounds of diced beef and chopped onions measured by the bucketful. A cauldron large enough to accommodate a skinny teenager [‘Mark! Get out of that pan!’] would quietly tremble away all afternoon and anyone passing through the kitchen would know to take the huge wooden spoon and give it a good stir. As I’m working from memory and scaling this down considerably for the benefit of those who are feeding less than 100 I have had to extemporise here and there, but when I made this recently it really didn’t seem a million miles away from the original.

With the catering quantities method there was no opportunity for browning the meat, softening the veg, deglazing the pan, and all the things we’ve become conditioned to think are essential when making a casserole. We simply tossed everything into the pot and allowed the ingredients and the alchemy of long, slow cooking to do their work. So that is what I have tried to recreate here. This would probably work very well in a slow cooker too if you have one. NB this needs to be made at least the day before it is to be eaten.

Feeds two, plus one for lunch the following day

• 400g chuck steak or other casseroling beef, cut into 1.5cm dice
• 500ml Theakston’s Old Peculier
• 400ml beef stock
• 150ml water
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 1 bouquet garni [preferably thyme, parsley, bay and marjoram]
• 1 additional bay leaf
• 100g mushrooms, sliced very thinly
• around 1 tbsp cornflour mixed with water to thicken

Tip the beef, onion, liquids and herbs into a casserole and slowly bring to a simmer over a low to medium heat. Cover with a tight-fitting lid and place in a 150˚C oven for four hours. Ignore. After the four hours cooking time remove the casserole from the oven and, back on the hob over a low heat, add the cornflour to thicken whilst stirring gently. Remove from the heat, add the mushrooms, and stir well to combine – they will cook as the dish cools. Cool and refrigerate for at least a day, two would be even better, three if you can bear the wait. Serve with a buttered baked potato, and maybe a glass of Old Peculier. Or two.

Chicken Stock

There is no more heinous waste-crime in my book [and it’s quite a thick book, but this one is written in red, and underlined] than to throw away the remains of a roasted bird before they have visited the stockpot. I once went for Sunday lunch with a large group of friends to a pub which served whole roast chickens to share, and insisted that the resulting five carcasses be wrapped and bagged for me to take home – there was chicken stock in the freezer for weeks! Age of austerity or not, there’s no way you should just bin those bones.

• The carcass, skin and any juices / jelly / trimmings from your roast bird
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 2 sticks of celery, chopped
• A glug of white wine / vermouth / brandy / dry sherry
• Salt
• 10 black peppercorns
• Bay leaves
• Any other herbs of your choosing

Firstly place your carcass etc. in the pan and turn up the heat for a while before adding any of the other ingredients. The skin and bones will start to sizzle and spit and release their aroma and flavour. Now throw in your choice of booze and allow this to quickly bubble away. Vermouth and wine [the end of last night’s bottle is fine] work well, brandy gives good depth of flavour to the finished stock, or chose something else if you have a specific job in mind for the stock. For instance when making the chicken, garlic and brie pie posted here I used a fino sherry which on its own partners very well with brie, and I wanted to see if they got along just as well here[*].

Throw in the holy trinity of aromatic veg, the onion, carrot and celery, and give all a good stir. The choice of herbs is also dependant on what you want to do with the finished article but I always add a bay leaf or two and some parsley stalks if I have them lying around, which of course you do if you’re using the leaves elsewhere! Again when making the pie I knew there’d be thyme involved some added some to the stock too. There’s no need to spend time making neat little bouquets garnis with the herbs, you’ll be straining everything through a sieve so just plonk everything in the pot. Pop in the peppercorns and a generous helping of sea salt then add enough boiling water to submerge the contents of the pan and return to the boil. Skim off any scum which floats to the surface and having reduced the heat allow this to simmer uncovered for 45 minutes to an hour.

Taste your stock as you go and don’t be scared to up the seasoning until the flavour is as you want it; if you’ve ever been disappointed by the flavour of a homemade stock the most likely cause is excessive caution with the salt. After an hour the solids will have done their work and you can strain off the liquid and discard them, but for additional richness and intensity you can continue to reduce the stock if you wish. And there you have it – the starter for soups, risottos, sauces and so on – for not much more than an hour of your time, the price of a few vegetables, and some leftovers which would otherwise be wasted. And you won’t have me turning on your doorstep and waving that book!

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[*] They did!

The Never Ending Fillet!

Mmmm, beef fillet. Luxurious, indulgent, and not something you’d eat every day. Not, that is, unless you’ve been living here for the last few days. What began as a South African braai [or barbecue for the non-Afrikaans speaking] in honour of the world cup host nation has, mercifully given the price of fillet, metamorphosed into a medley of delicious dishes. But let’s start at the beginning…

‘Gemsbok fillet in red wine and soya sauce’ read the recipe, helpfully adding that in the absence of Gemsbok any South African antelope could be used. A trip to my local butchers however failed to turn up a single specie of antelope and the decision was soon taken to replace the prancing prince of the plains with a cow. ‘Enough for six’ I told Mr Armstrong and left with a hefty slab of the finest fillet [c. 1.5 kg] ready to submerge it in what I like to think of as a spa treatment for meat, a deep, dark marinade which the recipe said should be composed of the following:

• A bottle of Merlot [though I had an open Pinot Noir and used that instead]
• 125 ml soy sauce
• 125 ml olive oil
• A tablespoon of soft brown sugar
• 5 or 6 crushed garlic cloves
• A small thumb of grated ginger
• A small teaspoon of crushed coriander seeds
• 2 or 3 finely shredded chillies [I left the seeds in despite being told to do otherwise]
• And without being asked to do so by the recipe I couldn’t resist throwing in a couple of torn and fragrant bay leaves

Despite the South African provenance of the recipe there’s a clearly oriental bent to these aromatics which I have previously combined with red wine, Chinese five spice and honey when cooking duck, but the beef [as I’m sure would have the Gemsbok] appeared very much at home with its new playmates and became a darker ruby red with every turn over the next 8 hours.

Now it would seem from the recipe book [Cape Wine Braai Masters – free with 6 bottles of South African Wine!] that your average South African barbecues roughly three meals per day, but I’m British and with English summers being what they are I probably cook over coals that many times per year, and as such I think I lack the natural confidence with charcoal which comes from the life lived largely outdoors. So the fillet had its prescribed 20 minutes per side on the barbecue, with regular basting, but there was an oven waiting at 200˚C and off it popped for a further 20 minutes in there to be on what we Brits would call ‘the safe side’. Whilst the meat finished and rested I reduced the remaining marinade to a thick sauce which needed only a sparing drizzle over the thickly sliced meat. The result was meltingly tender meat, still rare at the core and with an intensely flavoured outer crust, but without knowing the exact temperature of the charcoal etc I can only suggest using the ‘poke test’ one would apply to a fillet on the grill to check when the meat is cooked to your liking.

The same book contains a great recipe for a simple but splendid tomato salad with mixed varieties of tomatoes [as many as you can find], diced red onion, finely chopped red chillies and basil with a lemony vinaigrette which eats very nicely with the beef on a warm summer evening.

Well received as the fillet was by the braai guests I was left with about half of the meat and a good quantity of the marinade / sauce. Perhaps I should have scaled to quantities to take account of the Sosatie marinated pork chops and the Bobotie spiced chicken [ostrich, it seems, is no easier to come by than Gemsbok]. Ah well, there are worse things to worry about in life than what to do with a hulking great chunk of steak and some intensely fragrant cooking liquors. And despite the summer heat I was inexorably drawn, wherever else I looked, in one direction. The direction — of cottage pie!

EPISODE TWO – THE PIE.

I do have an old fashioned hand cranked mincing machine, inherited from my mother, but it’s suction foot doesn’t suck properly anymore and the laborious job of feeding flesh into its gaping jaws and winding [and winding, and more winding!] the handle whilst trying to keep it in one place is actually nowhere near as much fun as mum made it look. So mincing by hand with a chef’s hatchet seemed the best way forward, first with, then across the grain of the meat. I have seen Chinese chefs do this to raw pork with a cleaver in each hand, but again it’s probably one of those things where a lifetime of practice pays dividends so I took the slow and steady route.

An onion was chopped and sweated, in went some more garlic, then some quartered button mushrooms [for some reason known only to The Shop Keeper we have a fridge FULL of mushrooms] and some finely diced carrot. And was that half a fennel bulb lurking in the salad drawer? Why not.

Next a good squeeze of tomato puree, a dash of umami paste, and a glug of fruity rose [also, ahem, open], which all cooked out for a few minutes more. Then in with the hand minced beef, the remaining marinade / sauce, a good quality tin of chopped tomatoes, and, as it looked a little thick, another good glug of wine. Oh and a couple more bay leaves from the neighbours’ garden. Then it’s simmering time. Gentle simmering that is, we are after all cooking with fillet steak and not boiling brisket.

And having tipped the result into a pie dish more than big enough for two – there’s still enough left over for another day! [see Episode Three]

I always let a cottage or shepherd’s pie filling cool before attempting the topping. The filling become firm when cold and as such it’s far easier to get a nice even coating of mash. And I wanted this mashed potato to be bold enough to hold its own against the richness beneath so added a generous grated handful of full bodied, meatily mature Comte which had somehow managed to squeeze into the fridge amongst all the mushrooms. So, mash on, top swirled with the tines of a fork, brush with melted butter and into the oven until golden on top and bubbling around the edges. At which point allow to the pie to sit and [literally] chill for a few minutes before serving. The taste buds of a scalded tongue would struggle to savour the delicate complexities of your creation.

There is an ongoing debate between The Shop Keeper and I as to the perfect accompaniment for such a pie, that being garden peas or baked beans. On a cold November Monday with an M&S cottage pie I’m quite happy to take the path of least resistance and open a can of Heinz, but for a pie of this refinement nothing less than the king of the greens will suffice. In case you’re wondering, we ate this one with peas.

EPISODE THREE – THE SKY [...’s the limit? OK this is a really crap heading but I’m about to write about tortillas and nothing appropriate rhymes with ‘Braai’ and ‘Pie’]

Don’t forget, this beef is amongst other things, a spicy little number – remember all those chillies way back in the original marinade? They’ve mellowed somewhat by now, but they’re still there. And so the last hurrah for this saucy little cow is to be in a meaty tortilla.

This won’t be the traditional chilli filling but I’m looking forward to the rich and slightly spicy mixture wrapped in a warm flour tortilla, and topped with sliced avocado, a tomato, lime and chilli salsa, and a dollop of soured cream. There’s only one thing missing – the cheese. Luckily we didn’t use all of that Comte, and I think it’s about time that this fillet and that particular fromage were reunited…