30-Apr-20: As the Covid “thing” began to hit, I had cooked up some food and froze – like many others. But I didn’t go overboard – just so we had some supplies in the freezer if things got really “locked down”. Given I also work in Melbourne during the week (in non-Covid times) and stay in the apartment, worse case, if we didn’t need it, I’d take it down there with me to save cooking during the week. So a level of sensible precaution I thought…
Well, we’re well and truly in the middle of it now and time to use some of my frozen goodies.
So out came a portion of frozen slow cooked beef casserole. I’d made it in sort of like an osso bucco-style but without the osso bucco meat and was based on about 1 kg of chuck steak.
It was made with onions (1), garlic (3-4 crushed), peeled and cubed-chopped carrot and I also threw in some leek (1) and shallots (2) as like the added savouriness they provide. Fresh herbs such as rosemary, thyme and oregano (about 1tbs each) and a couple of bay leaves. 1 large tin of crushed tomatoes, about half a bottle of red wine and about 3-4 cups of chicken stock, lemon rind and finished towards the end with 2tbs tomato paste.
The basic sequence of events are as follows:
- Season plain flour in a bag with salt and pepper – throw the beef cubes in (chopped up around 2x2cm) and coat
- Brown the beef and remove and then gently brown the onion combo (onions, leek, carrot, crushed garlic and shallots) in a heavy based, oven proof pan (I use a “le creuset” casserole dish)
- Add the beef back, with the red wine and bring to the boil, scraping all the bits off the bottom of the pan, add the chicken stock, crushed tomatoes and the herbs, season with a salt and pepper and a heaped teaspoon of sugar.
- Bring to the boil and throw in the oven for about 90minutes, pull out and add in the tomato paste and finish off for another 30minutes or so, until the meat is tender and falling apart
- Whola ! Ready to go…. in this case, I portioned up and froze for later
For the baked gnocchi, once the casserole was defrosted, I heated a little in the microwave, and then pulled apart the meat, turning it into essentially a ragu
I used packet gnocchi (as it is a Thursday evening) and cooked it up but just a little under – so if the packet said 4 minutes, I did 3 – just as some of the gnocchi started to float. This was so they didn’t go to soft and sloppy in the bake.
Mixed the gnocchi and ragu together and into a baking dish, made up a cheese béchamel (any old béchamel recipe will do – just google one) and added mozzarella and parmesan into it. Covered the gnocchi mix with the cheese sauce and topped with more grated parmesan.
Into the oven for about 30minutes or until the top is golden brown and its ready to go. Given the heart attack nature of this, thought, like Monday, best have something green so did some lightly steamed baby Brussel Sprouts again and to be honest they go fabulously with the richness of the ragu!
Whilst a Thursday night, couldn’t resist a sneaky little Italian-style red (from the King Valley, in Vic, of course…) 🙂 🙃 😉
Hmmm Thursday Happy Soul Food moment – yummmo !!!!
