Beef Casserole With Spice

Jewelies's Note:

I spent an day looking after a family members home while workmen were there to install a new security entranceway (they are away on holiday) so to keep me busy I decided to go through their cookbooks looking for some recipes to post on 'zaar.

• Total Time: 3 hrs 15 mins
• Prep Time: 15 mins
• Cook Time: 3 hrs

Ingredients:

Servings: 4

• 1 kg shin beef, cut into large chunks
• 100 g bacon, roughly chopped
• 2 medium carrots, peeled and chopped
• 2 medium onions, peeled and chopped
• 2 celery ribs, washed and chopped
• 1 cup tomato puree (or 2 T gently fried tomato paste)
• 1 -2 star anise
• 1 piece orange rind (use a potato peeler, wide strip)
• 1 small cinnamon stick
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 large potatoes, peeled and chopped
• 2 turnips or 2 swedes, peeled and chopped

Directions:

1. Perheat the oven to 200°C.
2. Throw all the ingredients into a really big casserole. Add enough water to cover (about 1 litre or a little less should be right) and about 2 teaspoons salt.
3. Turn the oven down to 160C, pop the lid on the casserole and cook for about 3 hours or so. (Much of this time - about 1 hour - the casserole is coming up to heat so to speed things up you can bring it to a simmer on the stove in a flame proof dish).
4. Check for salt, add a few grinds of black pepper and serve.

Reviews

[I'mPat]

Flavour wise this was really nice but I would call it more a soup than a casserole. In the last half an hour I made a roux of butter and flour and used the liquid from the casserole to make a thick sauce and poured it back into the casserole and put it back in the oven, this gave us a gravy to mop up with buttered bread. Due to allergy issues I did not add the onion and celery. A big plus is that it is very quick to put together. Thank you Jewelies will try again but maybe toss the meat in some flour. Made for Edition 2 - MAKE MY RECIPE - a game of tag.