We are down to the last few meals from our portion of a cow from Bonnie Beef. I’ve been a bit stumped about what to do with our y-bone steak. I wanted something more than just a fried steak. Flicking through my Women’s Weekly “Pressure Cooking” cookbook I found a recipe for Hungarian Goulash. I handed the book and the steak to J and in just over half an hour this is what I got back! Having a husband who likes to cook is a definite advantage on those nights when I simply can’t be bothered (yes, I have those too!).
I believe J threw in the brussel sprouts at the same time as the capsicum.
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons Plain flour
- 800 grams Beef (I used y-bone) coarsely chopped
- 2 tablespoons Olive oil
- 2 medium BRown onions, finely chopped
- 2 cloves Garlic, crushed
- 1 tablespoon Sweet paprika
- 2 teaspoons Caraway seeds (I didn't have any so used cumin)
- 1/2 cup Water
- 1 tablespoon Tomato paste
- 1 Red capsicum, sliced thinly
- 1 cup Self-raising flour, sifted
- 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh chives
- 2/3 cup Milk
Directions
- Season flour in a large bowl and toss the pieces of beef to coat. Shake off any excess.
- Heat 1.5 tablespoons of the oil in the base of the pressure cooker. Cook the beef in batches until browned and then remove from cooker.
- Heat the remaining oil in the cooker and cook the onion on a medium heat, stirring, until soft.
- Add the garlic, paprika and 2 teaspoons of the caraway seeds (we didn't have any so we used cumin). Cook, stirring, until fragrant.
- Return the beef tot he cooker with the water combined with the tomato paste. Secure the lid.
- Bring the cooker to high pressure. Reduce heat to stabilise the pressure and cook on the "low" setting for 25 minutes.
- Release the pressure using the quick release button. Once the pressure has dissipated remove the lid.
- Add the capsicum, secure the lid again.
- Bring the cooker up to high pressure, reduce heat to stabilise pressure. Cook for 5 minutes.
- Meanwhile make chive dumplings by combining sifted flour, chives and salt and pepper in a medium bowl. Stir in the milk and combine to make a soft dough.
- Release the pressure using the quick release button. Once the pressure has dissipated remove the lid. Season to taste.
- Bring the goulash to the boil on the stove top.
- Drop heaped tablespoons of the dumpling mixture into the goulash and sprinkle with the remaining seeds.
- Simmer, partly covered with the lid (not under pressure) for about 10 minutes or until the dumplings are cooked through.
It was Saturday night and my Mum and her husband were coming over for dinner. I had a 1.4kg piece of beef topside roast, a new pressure cooker and it was freezing cold. Dinner was on the table with just over an hours work on my part. The highlight, however, was the gravy. It’s a bit of extra time and effort, but once you remove the beef and vegetables, crank up the heat and reduce the sauce down by about half until it’s thick, rich and delicious.
Ingredients
- 1.4kg Beef topside roast
- 1 tablespoon Olive oil
- 2 medium Onions, peeled and quartered
- 315 grams Carrots, whole or halved
- 500 grams Potatoes (small, scrubbed)
- 40 grams Butter
- 2 tablespoons Plain flour
- 1.5 cups Beef stock
- 1/3 cup Dry red wine
- 1 tablespoon Tomato paste
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
Directions
- Heat oil in the bottom of your pressure cooker pan.
- Using tongs, brown the beef topside on all sides until brown. Remove from the cooker.
- Cook onions, carrots and potatoes in cooker, stirring, until browned lightly. Remove from the cooker.
- Melt the butter in the cooker, add the flour and cook stirring until browned lightly.
- Gradually stir in the stock and wine. Cook, stirring frequently, until the sauce boils and thickens.
- Stir in the tomato paste and worcestershire sauce.
- Return the beef to the cooker and secure the lid.
- Bring the cooker to high pressure, then reduce heat to stabilise the pressure. Cook on the "low" setting for 20 minutes.
- Release the pressure using the quick release button. Once the pressure has dissipated remove the lid.
- Add the vegetables to the cooker and secure the lid.
- Bring the pressure back up to high, then reduce the heat to stabilise the pressure. Cook on the "low" setting for 7 minutes.
- Release the pressure using the quick release button. Once the pressure has dissipated remove the lid.
- Remove the beef and vegetables. Cover and stand for 10 minutes, then slice the beef.
- While standing, reduce the sauce that remains in the pressure cooker over a high heat until thick and reduced by about half.
- Pour the sauce/gravy into a jug and then serve with the beef and vegetables.
For our recent wedding, my Dad and his wife gave us a stove-top pressure cooker. I have fond memories of corned beef cooked in one by my Mum and Nana when I was growing up. The gift also came with the modern Women’s Weekly cookbook “Pressure Cooking” and I soon discovered that a pressure cooker has many more applications than I ever knew! It’s also perfect for preparing dishes that normally require a longer cooking time when you are under weeknight time pressures. So, over the next few weeks I thought I’d do a bit of a series on dishes I cook in my latest gadget – originally titled “Under pressure”!
First up is osso buco in a tomato sauce. I am aware that traditional osso buco is just done in a white wine sauce (blanc) but this was the recipe in the cookbook. I was surprised by how easy this was – I must confess a bit of apprehension at my first trial with the pressure cooker. In just half an hour, I had meltingly tender osso buco on the bone, and one happy husband!
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon Olive oil
- 6 Pieces osso buco
- 1 large Brown onion, chopped finely
- 2 cloves Garlic, crushed
- 6 Drained anchovy fillets, chopped finely
- 1/4 cup Coarsely chopped fresh basil
- 1 Tin crushed tomatoes
- 1/2 cup Dry red wine
- 1/2 cup Coarsely chopped seeded black olives
- 1/3 cup Loosely packed fresh small basil leaves
Directions
- Heat oil in the base of the pressure cooker.
- Cook the pieces of osso buco in batches until browned. Remove from cooker.
- Cook the onion, garlic, anchovy and chopped basil in the cooker, stirring, until the onion softens.
- Return the osso buco to the cooker together with the tin off tomatoes and the wine.
- Secure the lid and bring the cooker to high pressure.
- Reduce the heat on your stove to stabilise the pressure and cook on the "high" setting for 30 minutes.
- Release the pressure using the quick release button. Once the pressure has dissipated removed the lid.
- Stir in the olives and season to taste.
It’s still felt like winter the last few weeks in Brisbane (lots of rain and wind), so here’s one last winter warmer dish.
This is easy and simple, and is taken from the book “The CSIRO Heart Healthy Program”. I know the CSIRO diet was very popular a few years ago, and despite its detractors I think most of the recipes are delicious.
We also made dumplings to throw on top for the last 30 minutes of cooking. Dumplings are simply made by rubbing flour, a pinch of salt and butter together and then adding water until you have a reasonably firm dough. You can also add herbs to taste – we added rosemary to these ones. Roll them into little balls and place on top of the cooking stew.
Details
30 min
120 min
2 h, 30 min
Ingredients
- 400 grams Beef, in 4cm cubes
- 1 tablespoon Plain flour
- 2 tablespoons Oil
- 2 Brown onions, diced
- 2 Carrots, thickly sliced
- 2 Sticks celery, sliced
- 440 mL can Guiness
- 2 cups Beef stock
- 2 tablespoons Tomato paste
- 1 Bay leaf
- 1 sprig Rosemary
- 1 sprig Thyme
- 200 grams Small button mushrooms
- 600 grams Chat potatoes, halved
- 1/4 cup Roughly chopped flat-leaf parsley
Directions
- Place flour in a bowl and season with pepper, then toss the beef through the flour.
- Heat 1 tbs of the oil in a heavy dutch oven over medium heat.
- Add the beef and cook in batches. About 3 minutes or until browned. Remove and set aside. You'll probably end up with flour stuck to the bottom of the pan - this is the flavour!
- Add the remaining oil to the casserole dish and cook the onion, carrot and celery for 5 minutes until they begin to soften.
- Stir in the tomato paste and cook for 1 minute.
- Add the beef, Guinness, stock, bay leaf, rosemary and thyme.
- Bring tot he boil, then reduce the heat and simmer, covered for 1.5 hrs, stirring occasionally. Add the dumplings if making in the last 30 minutes.
- Add mushrooms and potatoes, then simmer, uncovered, for 10-15 more minutes.
- To serve stir in the parsley and serve with green veges.
Unfortunately I can’t take credit for this recipe - this comes for the blog “For the love of cooking” and as she says, she has been perfecting it for 12 years now. I have to say, it’s a pretty great recipe.
Of course, I can’t seem to follow a recipe exactly, so here are my changes. Instead of stew meat I used beef mince. I used a whole red capsicum and a whole green one for both flavour and colour. I omitted the garlic powder as I don’t have any. I omitted the can of green chillies and instead added zucchini. I just used a small tub of tomato paste instead of tomato sauce. And I used 2 tins of kidney beans instead of other beans. If you’re a vegetarian, just omit the beef – I’ve made it several times without and it’s still lovely.
To serve, I added natural yoghurt, grated cheddar, sliced spring onions, and avocado mixed with lemon juice, salt and pepper. Usually I would serve with rice, but I had leftover cous-cous to use up. I topped with a healthy serve of corn chips for crunch.
This recipe makes at least 4 large man-sized serves, so we divided up the remain and froze it for a meal at a later date. I recommed you start this recipe early in the day so the flavours of the chilli have time to blend and develop. As the smells waft through the house it will be very difficult to resist scooping up a portion early but I promise it is worth the wait!
Sometimes you just want an enormous slab of meat…
This was our “rolled roast” from our Honest Beef box. It’s been in the freezer for a while and I haven’t used it because it needs a long time to defrost and cook and I never remember to get it out with enough time. The Easter long-weekend provide a perfect opportunity to spend the time cooking it. And now we have lots and lots of leftovers for lunches and dinners this week.
My starting point with this recipe was the recipe for Traditional English roast beef with Yorkshire puddings in my Food Safari cookbook. However, I decided to skip the Yorkshire puddings and serve with roasted sweet potato and potato, and a side of greens.
Details
20 min
180 min
3 h, 20 min
Ingredients
- Large rolled beef roast You can buy these pre-rolled from most butchers
- 2 tbsps Olive oil
- 2 tbsps Flour
- 2 tsps Mustard powder
- 1 tsp Cracked black pepper
- 1-2 Sprigs of rosemary
- 1 tsp Thyme, dried or fresh
- 1 pinch Sea salt
- 1/4 cup Red wine
- 1/2 cup Stock
- 1 tsp Cornflour, if necessary
Directions
- Preheat oven to 200*.
- Mix the flour, mustard powder and cracked black pepper together in a small bowl.
- Pat all over the rolled roast until well covered.
- Push springs of rosemary into the roast (use a knife to help push them in if they aren't very woody).
- Heat 1 tbs of oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat.
- Add the roast to the pan and sear well on all sides. You want the meat to caramelize and brown well all over.
- Remove roast from flying pan.
- Pour remaining oil into baking tray, or if you're concerned about splashes, spray a bit of oil into an oven bag.
- Sit the roast with the fatty side up in the baking tray, or inside the oven bag then sitting in the tray.
- Sprinkle the roast with thyme and sea salt.
- Bake in the oven until cooked to your preference.
- About an hour before finishing, add chopped vegetables of your choice to the pan. Toss slightly in the pan juices. Return the pan to the oven.
- Once the meat is cooked, remove from the oven and the pan. Cover with alfoil and allow to rest for about 30 minutes. Remove the vegetables from the pan and place in a bowl and cover with alfoil to keep warm.
- You should have a reasonable amount of fat and pan juices left in the baking tray. Scrape them up off the bottom and pour into a small saucepan.
- Add the red wine and bring the saucepan up to a boil, reducing the liquid to about half.
- Add the stock (and any herbs if you desire). Boil off until gravy starts to thicken. If you're impatient like me, mix the cornflour with a little water and add to the saucepan. This will aid the thickening process.
- Serve thick slices of the roast with vegetables and drizzle with gravy. If there's gravy left over, I love to use it on roast beef sandwiches the next day...but that could just be me!
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