Boeuf Bourguignon in Cape French Style

It has been a while since my last posting. Nursing a torn shoulder muscle saps away one's energy like nothing else. This injury put a serious crimp on my sailing activities. However, it is a new year and time for another cooking adventure.

We have high summer here in Cape Town around this time of the year, so making a stewed dish may sound somewhat eclectic. However, this one is very easy to make, requires but a few ingredients, and will feed the hungry hordes on their return from the beach or their other outdoor activities. And I probably have very little convincing to do to my northern hemisphere readers!

Another hearty dish originating in France, now used all over the world. I have made similar dishes with great success without wine, using soy sauce and tomatoes instead.

This dish may be made a day before serving. It ages and develops flavour if left in the refrigerator overnight and takes well to freezing.

So this is another one of my few experiments in cooking with wine. Somehow I have not yet explored that avenue of the culinary arts properly.

Most of the recipes on the internet use beef chuck as the main ingredient, so I opted for the same cut. It is one of the cheaper cuts from the carcass and quite flavourful. Basically any juicy cut from the forequarters will do. I also keep some of the bones. They tend to enrich the sauce part of the dish. Just be careful of too much fat. I usually trim most off. Between the bacon fat and the marrow you probably have sufficient fat for a delicious combination.


As for the bacon, most recipes propose pancetta. Over here in Cape Town, pancetta tends to be more expensive than the standard smoked bacon bits that can be obtained from your friendly chain store grocer.

You don't really need fancy cuts of bacon or beef, as you will be stewing it in wine anyway. I opted for a less pricey version of both.

Talking about the wine, there is much fuss. Some recipes specify quite fancy wine, others specify cooking wine. Others specify cognac as well. The reason for using the wine lies in the acidity and some flavour. The acidity will help to de-glaze the pan. The flavour of the wine itself is of less importance, as the dish contains a lot of other strong flavours that will overwhelm the wine. There is a caveat, however: The stuff sold as cooking wine may not be drinkable as a result of added chemicals. You don't want to use such concoctions. Use wine that you will drink yourself. While some French recipes specify burgundy, any easy quaffing dry red will do.

For this dish I specifically did not use tomatoes. It is up to the cook to decide. Both Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsey has recipes on the net that use tomatoes. After a long chat about this subject recently to a French student of mine, I decided to go without tomatoes.

As for stock, I follow the school of thought that the preparation procedure creates sufficient stock to thicken the sauce, so no additional stock is required. So far this line of thinking has stood me in good stead.

The vegetables I cut into chunky, coarse bits. The meat is chunky, so the chunky veggies add to the texture. I did not have fresh thyme, so had to use the dried herb.

I always add some chilli to my stewed dishes, it brings out the other flavours. There is a caveat again: you need to have only a tiny amount in the dish. Once you start tasting the chilli, you have too much. If you are too scared, used a tiny bit of cayenne pepper instead, it is much more user-friendly.

So here goes.

Boeuf Bourguignon in Cape French style

Ingredients

1 kilo beef chuck cubed into 20mm cubes
250g bacon bits
250 g small brown mushrooms, quartered or halved
2-3 cups red wine
4 cloves garlic
2-3 brown onions, medium sized, chopped coarsely
3-4 pickling onions
sprig parsley
4 medium carrots, julienned coarsely
4 stalks celery, chopped
½ cup plain cake flour
1 tablespoon dried thyme
4 bay leaves
½ hot Thai chilli, chopped.
salt  & pepper

Procedure

Fry the bacon bits in a medium hot pan until the fat has run out. Remove the bacon from the pan and keep aside. While the bacon is frying, pat the meat cubes dry with paper towels and roll them in the flour. This is the only tricky part. The meat has to be quite dry before dusting with flour. If not, the meat will not brown properly and your dish will not have the rich flavours that you want.

Now fry the meat cubes in the bacon fat until they are nice and brown. You have to do this in batches, otherwise the meat juices will make enough water in the pan to boil the meat, not fry it. Add a dollop of olive oil if the fat seems too little. The bottom of the pan will now get a layer of caramelised meat and flour. Don't worry, this is your stock forming. Just watch that this layer doesn't burn. Keep the temperature low enough.


Once the meat is done, fry the onions in the remaining fat/olive oil. Once the onions go brown, fry the chopped garlic and the chilli, then remove from the pan.  Now add the mushrooms and fry them for 30 seconds to a minute. Remove them from the pan as well and keep aside.

Once this is done you may turn the heat to low and add the wine. This will de-glaze the pan and you should have a thick-ish sauce.

Add back the beef cubes and bring to the boil. Now add the chopped carrots, celery and the bacon. Here you may add either boiling water or more wine, as you prefer. The dish needs to simmer in juice, so check it frequently. This simmering must really be just a simmer: very slow indeed. Budget at least two hours and keep the lid tightly on the pan.

Once the meat starts going tender, add the mushrooms and some chopped parsley. Close the lid and wait another twenty minutes or so.

In the meantime you may prepare the accompanying side dish. This may be in the form of pasta, toasted bread, potato mash or any other starchy side dish that you prefer. This is a very juicy dish, so any starch that will absorb sauce will work. I opted for baby potatoes boiled in the skin.


It is always good practice to allow the dish to repose for at least half an hour before dishing up. This will allow the flavours to develop. However, if you have hungry hordes to feed, you may just be outnumbered and swept aside!

Now dish up. Of course, not to forget that you will need at least another bottle of red wine to go with the dish...


Bon appetit!




Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2017-01-01

Flavours of Africa: Oxtail And Samp

Winter arrived properly here in the Cape yesterday, along with the associated rain and cold. Today we have had some thunder and lightning already, with heavy clouds over the Helderberg.

Time for a real winter stew.

For a while now I have been thinking of traditional African stews. A search on the internet revealed very few local recipes. Those that are listed vary from having very simple ingredients to some exotic spicy versions.  Mostly the dishes are from outside of Africa.

So I decided to have yet another version. A stew with an East African slant, if you will. This means that there needs to be a hint of the Middle East in there, with some exotic flavours, but not too spicy. Having reasoned thus far, the ingredients started to settle in my mind.


Lots of cumin, smoked paprika, mixed Madagascan pepper, some garlic, a hint of cinnamon, then some sage and coriander leaves at the end. Coarse sea salt. A dollop of soy sauce. Done. To give  this dish an African flavour, I added red kidney beans as well. My reasoning was that the dish will be served with samp, the broken cooked maize kernels that are so traditional in Africa. Mixed samp and beans is quite popular too, but I decided against this as there was beans in the main dish anyway.

Samp is soaked in salt water for two to three hours prior to cooking. The kernels will soak up some water and wash off some starch. This is discarded and fresh water added for the cooking, which also takes one and a half to two hours. At the end the kernels are nicely swollen and quite chewy. To this I added a dollop of fresh cream and a knob of real butter. This makes for a rich creamy flavour to soak up all the juices from the oxtail.

Oxtail tend to be very tough and has lots of fat. You may not want all the fat in your dish, but do not despair. There is no need to cut the fat off, the process will take care of this. The beauty of oxtail is that one cooks the meat to a very gelatinous consistency, giving the dish an almost creamy texture. In this case I patted the meat quite dry, then fried the pieces in butter and cooking oil until it turned a nice toast colour of brown. The meat is done in batches to not have juices soaking up the heat and causing a cooking, rather than frying process.

The meat is then set aside to rest while you prepare the sauce. Discard the contents of the skillet, that is where most of the unwanted fat will be. This leaves the meat less fatty and nicely caramelised on the outside.

There is another angle to this dish: I made it the day before. This allowed the flavours to develop overnight. When cooking with spices, the flavours tend to be on the sharp side as a result of the frying which lets the oils out of the spices. Allowing the dish to rest will get rid of the very sharp essential oils and leave the basic flavours to marry. The meat also gains some texture, as it relaxes and is therefore a bit more tender.

On the cooking process there is much argument and debate. Some people use a pressure cooker, others like me don't. Some people will have the dish on relatively high heat, while others will use only the barest minimum. I follow the slow route. I believe that cooking any meat fast will cause some chemical changes and the meat will turn out like rubber if you are not careful. Also, I am told, the meat needs to be at room temperature before you start cooking or frying, otherwise it may go tough anyway. Oxtail specifically is quite tough and I have had some very rubbery meat served to me on the odd occasion.

Prepare your food with care and your efforts will be rewarded by the flavours.

So here goes.

East African Oxtail And Samp

Ingredients

750 g oxtail at room temperature
1 large onion, chopped
½ green pepper, chopped
½ cup chopped celery sticks
½ cup chopped carrot
½ cup of carrot, cut into sticks
1 small hot chilli, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped and mashed
1 can whole peeled or chopped tomatoes
2 medium sized fresh tomatoes
1 sachet tomato paste
1 can red kidney beans
some coarse sea salt
some freshly ground pepper
30 ml soy sauce
1 cup strong beef stock
4 bay leaves
small piece of cinnamon bark
3 teaspoons ground cumin
1 heaped teaspoon smoked paprika
½ teaspoon coriander seeds
small sprig of fresh sage
sprig of fresh coriander leaves
50g butter
oil for frying
1½ cups dry samp

Process

For the oxtail

Heat up a knob of butter and a dollop of oil in a skillet. Fry the pieces of oxtail until they are nice and brown outside. Fry them in batches if needs be. They must be brown, not grey.  Set them aside to rest. Discard the juices from the skillet.

The sauce is started by heating up some butter and oil in your saucepan. Fry the onions, green pepper, celery and carrot until the onion is translucent. Add the garlic, chilli and the coriander seeds and fry for another twenty seconds. Now add all the tomato and the rest of the dry spices. Add the dollop of soy sauce and the beef stock. Bring this lot to the boil, then add the meat back in. Ensure that the meat is covered in the sauce. Add some water if necessary.

Turn the heat down and allow the dish to simmer for three hours. Then turn the heat off and allow the dish to rest overnight.

On day two,  bring the dish to the boil and add the carrot sticks,some chopped coriander leaves and the chopped sage leaves. Allow to simmer for another one and a half to two hours, then add the beans. Wash the beans of its juice before adding it to the dish, this will probably cause the dish to burn. You don't want that at this stage of the proceedings.  The sauce may be allowed to reduce some at this stage, making for a thicker sauce. Check for the saltiness after the beans have been added. The meat should be falling off the bones by this time.

Bring to the boil, then turn the flame off and allow the dish to rest again for fifteen minutes.

For the samp

Soak the samp for two hours in salty water. Drain the starchy water and replace with fresh water. Add some salt, then bring to the boil and boil slowly for two hours or until the maize kernels are nicely puffed and chewy. Drain the excess water and add a good helping of butter and two to three dessert-spoons of cream. Mix this thoroughly. The result should be a very rich smelling and creamy tasting chewy maize dish.

Now dish up. This dish goes well with a full bodied red wine and good company.

Bon appetit!




Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2015-06-24

A New Life, A New Beef Dish

I recently seemed to have lost my zeal for cooking. Perhaps I lost my muse, as authors and artists would have it.

Or perhaps the two major surgical procedures and the large amounts of anaesthetic in my body had something to do with this loss of muse. Or it could have been the scare of finding a large cancerous tumour on my kidney and having it removed.

Whatever the case, after a two month sabbatical from cooking and from sailing, I am back. The recent spell of cold weather in the Cape triggered a primordial urge for a hearty stew. It is as if the cold weather creeps into your bones and your body tells you this cold will only be chased away by a hearty stewed dish.

After a short internet search, I had the idea. Osso buco. That very Italian dish that warms the cockles of your heart with the meat almost melting in your mouth.

The internet search was short, simply because I was very hungry. So I searched for stewed beef dishes. The standard recipe calls for veal. I summarily dismissed the idea and went and bought beef shin. Here in South Africa beef shin is relatively cheap. The cut need not be very tender, as the stewing process will see to that.

The process is what makes the dish. Spices are very simple. On one of the myriad web sites quoting a recipe, the author remarked that there appears to be an ongoing, raging debate on whether to use tomato or not. Then some recipes call for fennel, some not. Some require sage, others not. And so on.

Being of a somewhat eclectic bent, I decided that my recipe will be a fusion version. There will always be some chilli in my stewed dishes and mostly not any wine. I use soy sauce instead. The soy sauce has a slightly richer texture and a fuller flavour.

Dial Rock, Saldanha bay. It is good to be out on the water again.

Osso buco is basically beef shin or veal stewed in a bed of vegetables. Notably celery and carrot. These hard vegetables do not cook away, so you have some chewiness at the end of the cooking. Again, allow the dish to rest for at least half an hour before dishing up. This will allow the initial sharpness of the ingredients to calm down and allow the more subtle flavours to come out.

As for cooking, most recipes will have you simmer this dish in the oven for a long time at reasonably low temperature. I chose to cook the dish in a cast iron casserole on the burner. Again at low temperature for a long time. I used the same dish for the initial frying of the meat and the subsequent cooking. This will have the caramelised bits of the frying as part of your dish. The dish then makes its own stock, thereby enhancing the flavours.

The Milanese version of the dish serves it up on a bed of saffron risotto. I chose stock standard mashed potatoes. There is something earthy in mashed potatoes don't you think? This mash was made with milk and real butter, making it rich and creamy.


Osso buco needs a gremolata as well. I have never made this, so all was a bit new. Gremolata is quite simple. Mashed raw garlic mixed with finely chopped parsley. A no-brainer. However, this one has some trick to it to make the flavours come out. I use a little table salt with the chopped garlic when mashing it. The salt prevents the garlic from splattering all over the place. The salt also draws some juices out of the garlic. Add the finely chopped parsley and the salt keeps on doing its magic. For this recipe I added some very finely chopped up citrus peel to the gremolata. Make the gremolata while the meat is cooking. This will allow the gremolata's flavour to develop as well. The gremolata is served as a garnish on top of the plated food. I put half of the quantity into the casserole when I turned off the flame.

So here goes.

Osso Buco alla the Hungry Sailor

Ingredients

For the osso buco

500-600g beef shin with bone in
1 large onion, chopped
3 celery sticks chopped. You need about ¾ cup of chopped celery.
½ large carrot finely chopped. Again about ¾ cup of chopped carrot will do.
1 small hot chill, finely chopped
3 buttons garlic, chopped
2 medium fresh tomatoes, coarsely chopped
1 400g can of whole peeled tomatoes
1 50 ml sachet of tomato paste.
Dollop of soy sauce
dollop of olive oil
50 g butter
1 cup of chicken or vegetable stock.
4 fresh sage leaves
sprig of fresh fennel
Some oregano
Some hot water
25 ml of fine flour
pepper
salt

For the gremolata

2 buttons fresh garlic.
Sprig of fresh parsley
Zest of half a lemon. I used some dried citrus skin, finely chopped.

Process

Pat the meat as dry as you possibly can, then dust the meat with the flour. Make sure than all the surfaces are covered. Get the casserole up to heat and add the olive oil. The casserole should be of such a size that the meat can lie flat inside without being bundled up. Now fry the meat both sides until it is nice and brown. Take c are not to burn the meat. The flour may burn earlier than the meat, so your close attention is required.

Remove the meat from the pot, then add the butter. Turn the heat down if required. The butter must not burn. Allow the butter to melt, then add the chopped onions, celery and carrots. Fry these gently until the onions go translucent. Then add the garlic and chilli. Fry these for fifteen seconds or so. Now add the chopped tomatoes, the can of tomatoes and the dollop of soy sauce. Allow this lot to reduce to about half the volume, then add the stock. Mix through thoroughly.

Now place the pieces of meat on top, making sure that the meat is covered in fluid. The parts that stick out will not cook properly. Add the juices that oozed out of the meat while resting. At this stage I added some small onions whole, just for garnish. Add the tomato paste now. Add the sage and the fennel, tearing them by hand. Sprinkle some oregano over the lot.

Turn the heat down to minimum on your smallest burner and put the lid on. Check every half hour for sufficient fluid in the pot and ladle some of the juices on top of the meat. Now make the gremolata.


Chop up to buttons of garlic, using some table salt to keep the bits together during mashing. Add the chopped parsley and the lemon zest. Mix this thoroughly. The quantity should be around three table spoons.

The test for readiness is the tenderness of the meat. The meat should be marrow soft. This will take about two to three hours. Turn off the flame and sprinkle half of the gremolata on top. Close the lid and make the potato mash. Remember to add some real butter to the mash.

Then dish up. Sprinkle some gremolata on each serving as a garnish. This one goes very well with a full bodied red wine and low lights. Like candles.

Bon appetit!



Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2015-05-27

All images taken with LG G3 smart phone and processed with Photoshop Express.

Boeuf Bourgoignon a la Mode

It has been a while since my last venture into cooking for fun. The recent adventure of sailing a boat from the Seychelles to Gordon's Bay left me with hardly any energy to experiment. Besides, I had to do most of the cooking on board.

But now it is time for having some fun in the kitchen.

It is still winter here in Cape Town and surrounds, so the choice fell on a stew of some description. I searched at length on the internet for some ideas. Perhaps wading through a quagmire of recipes would be a better description. After some random reading, I decided that some experimentation would be in order.

Some recipes require the meat to marinate in wine and herbs for a long time. Especially the French versions. Italian versions cook the meat in copious amounts of tomatoes and tomato paste. All of the recipes, including the Thai and other eastern versions, have lots of garlic. I came across a recipe that requires twenty, yes numerals two zero, knobs of garlic. The mind boggles.


Having learnt a thing or two about getting flavour into a dish, it was clear that the process dominates the flavour. You certainly don't want to make a concoction of herbs and chemicals to obtain flavour.

I am also not partial about cooking with wine, preferring soy sauce. It is either wine or soy sauce, the two flavours clash. And then, in true Banting fashion, I started cooking extensively with real butter. Butter imparts a wonderful flavour and I like to think that the butter adds some fat to the dish, making it nice and rich. In addition, butter makes the meat and onions go brown.

So the choice fell on a French style beef stew, rich in gravy. And I called it Boeuf Bourgoignon a la Mode because it is made in a fashion of cooking that I like and, perhaps, to appease the French culinary purists.

Ingredients

750 g beef shin or chuck
250g fatty bacon
4 knobs garlic coarsely chopped
1 medium to large onion, coarsely chopped
4 fresh tomatoes, coarsely chopped
½ sweet bell pepper
1 small carrot diced
3 medium carrots in coarse wheels
3 shallots, coarsely chopped. Use the green leafy parts as garnish
1 cup mushrooms, button size or coarsely chopped
1 small can tomato paste
50 ml soy sauce (a largish dash, I suppose)
½ cup of flour
Pepper to taste
small sprig fresh rosemary
1 teaspoon dried parsley or a sprig of fresh parsley
1 teaspoon thyme or a sprig
1 dried Thai chilli, chopped
water
150g butter
some cooking oil

Process

The process here provides the stock part of the dish, so no additional stock is required. Start by getting the butter nicely melted and up to a decent hot temperature. While this is happening, cut the meat into cubes, keeping bones if any. Dry the meat diligently, then dust lightly with the flour. This will make the meat go brown. If there is any water in there, the meat will stay a dull grey colour.

First fry the bacon until crisp, then remove it from the pan. Try to keep as much of the juices as possible in the pan. Do the frying in batches if necessary. After the bacon, the meat gets fried until a nice dark brown.

There will be an accumulation of caramelised meat and flour on the bottom of the pan. Leave it there, that will become the stock for the dish. Again, do it batches if necessary. Remove the meat from the pan when done.


Next comes the onions, sweet pepper and the diced carrot. There should be a decent amount of fat in the pan. If it looks a bit dry, add some more butter. Fry the onions, pepper and carrot until they are a light brown, then add the chilli and garlic. Fry these for fifteen seconds, then add all the meat and the fresh herbs. Add the tomatoes now.

Also add the soy sauce at this stage, then add enough water to cover the ingredients. Bring the dish to the boil, then set the gas to the lowest setting, put the lid on, sit back and relax. Drink some wine.

The dish now has to simmer for at least one hour. Stir often with an egg lifter to help the crust come off the bottom of the pan and into the dish. You will notice that the sauce thickens on its own. This is good. Top up the water as the dish goes dry, you don't want it to burn. After an hour the meat should start to go tender.

When the meat is almost done, add the mushrooms,the shallots and the tomato paste. Simmer for another fifteen minutes or so, then remove the pot from the heat. Then start with the mash and veggies to accompany the dish. This will allow the dish to repose. That is a fancy word for letting the dish rest and develop flavour.

I use copious amounts of butter in the mashed potatoes, along with milk, salt, freshly ground pepper and some chopped parsley. Don't go overboard, though. This is supposed to accompany the main dish, not overpower it.

This dish is not really spicy, therefore it will go with a nice full-bodied red wine. This time around you get to drink the wine, not eating it as part of the dish!

Bon appetit!



Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2014-08-26