This is another great winter dinner, although it does take a bit of effort to make. It can be expensive or cheap, depending on which cut of beef you use.
Skirt steak (bavette) was awesome when I tried it on Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's advice (in the River Cottage Meat book), so if you can get it maybe try that, otherwise any stewing cut will do - long slow braising before the main bake is the key.
You also need some kidneys, lamb or calves is fine, but be very aware of the source as some calves liver will come from inhumanely treated veal calves, imported to the UK. There's a little bit more info about this in my earlier liver, onion & colcannon post.
I was feeding four fairly greedy people (including myself!) and used two 360g packs of beef skirt and six lamb's kidneys. This was enough to allow for two people coming back for seconds! Use scissors to snip them into bitesized chunks before rolling them in well seasoned flour and pan-frying in batches.
When all the meat has been browned, tip everything into a large pan, then fry up a large, thickly sliced onion in the juices, deglaze with red wine (a good, large glassful) and put this mixture into the casserole pan as well. Finally, add a couple of bay leaves, a dollop of English mustard, a dash of worcester sauce, a tablespoon of ketchup and a pint of really good beef stock.
You can now partially cover the pan and leave to simmer slowly for a good hour and a half. Add in a punnet of halved or whole mushrooms (chestnut are my favourite) for the last 15 minutes.Take the mixture off the heat and season it to taste.
Line your pie dish with puff pastry and pile the filling in. Cover with more puff pastry and any design you like on top, then brush all over with beaten egg. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and bake the pie for another hour.
Serve with mashed potatoes and green veg, such as kale.
This is an easy, warming soup which uses up a bunch of lonely beetroot from the bottom drawer of the frdge. It was inspired by a recipe in the new HFW book "River Cottage Veg Everyday", but I pretty much completely changed the character of it based on what I had available.
Roast your beetroots with a few garlic cloves in the oven at 180 for about 45 mins to an hour, coated in oil and alongside some thyme leaves, a bay leaf, salt, pepper and a slosh of water. When ready, skin them and chop into smallish pieces.
Fry up an onion in a saucepan until soft, then add the beetroot and a pint (500ml) of stock. Bring up to a boil and then keep at a simmer on a low heat for ten minutes or so.
Season well with salt and pepper, then with a small dash of worcestershire sauce *, a squirt of lemon juice and a generous drizzle of balsamic vinegar. If the brew still tastes "unfinished", try a small blob of redcurrant jelly - it worked for me.
Shove the lot into a blender and process until smooth. Pour into bowls and finish with a swirl of cream and some fresh chopped parsley.
* btw, in case you didn't know, you can now get vegetarian worcestershire sauce if you are so inclined. I found this one on the internet, but am sure I also saw one in Waitrose the other day.
