Beef Ragu with Creamy Mashed Potatoes
Serves: 4
Time: Prep 30 mins Cook Time: 4 hours
I absolutely love a good slow cooked dish especially when the weather outside is a bit miserable, but they aren’t the most pratical dish to make for a busy week night so you need to set some time aside for this one. We are locked indoors (not literally) so I am making the most of the time with delicious slow cooked dinners. Perfect to freeze when you don’t eat everything. The great thing also is if you are organised and get it started early it almost feels like you are having a night off cooking. But I think what I really like the most (other than the dish itself of course) is the way the house smells - so delicious all day long.
What You’ll Need
1 large brown onion
4 cloves of garlic
Any hard herb of choice: could be rosemary, thyme, oregano or a mix of all 3
2 carrots
2 stalks of celery
1 cup of red wine
1 tin of whole peeled tomatoes
1-1.2kg beef (again you could use almost any but my top picks would be a really well marbled rump or a grass fed oyster blade or beef cheeks)
1 packet of straw mushrooms
6 medium sized potatoes (try and get all the same size).
400ml cream
25g butter
1 bunch of watercress
truffle oil (optional)
From The Pantry
olive oil
salt and pepper
shaved parmesan
What Potatoes?
The type of potatoes you choose for mash are really impotant. my first choice are dutch creams they are a more creamy yellow colour and fluff up great. Desiree are another good potato they have a pink skin (but make sure you check the name as there are a few pink skinned potatoes and the others tend to be white and waxy which isn't good for mashing. Golden delight are also good they are often the dirty potatoes.
Prep
Preheat oven to 160c
Prep Veg
Peel and finely dice your onion.
Finely chop the garlic and herbs.
Peel and slice carrots into small dice. Wash and cut celery to the same size.
In a large casserole dish heat 2 tablespoons of oil, then add all of the above ingredients and sauté till lightly golden.
At the Same Time
Slice your meat into big squares roughly the size of half your palm.
Season the meat really well with salt and pepper.
(Your veg should be looking lovely and lightly golden or caramelized by now, so add your red wine to the casserole dish and allow to reduce down by 2/3 then remove from the heat).
Heat a large non stick fry pan with a good tablespoon of oil.
Begin browning off your meat in batches being careful not to overcrowd your fry pan.
I like to brown my meat almost to the point where you could consider it to be crispy. The more you brown the meat the better the flavours will be.
Once the meat is well browned transfer it to the casserole dish and repeat with your next batch of meat. Continue until all the meat has been browned.
Add the liquids
Add your tins of tomatoes crushing them with your hands as you tip them out. Then swill the cans out with 1/3 a can of water (this removes any left behind tomato goodness).
Add your beef stock and season with salt and pepper.
Give everything a good stir, then place the lid on and pop into the oven for 4 hours.
Check meat
It’s good to get into the habit of checking your meat every hour or so just to see how the progress is going as ovens can vary in temperature. You want the meat to constantly be covered with liquid. If the oven is too high your liquid could be reducing too hard and too fast so adjust the temperature.
After 4 hours your meat should fall apart when you stab it with a fork, if it still feels tough you’ll want to keep cooking it until it is lovely and soft. Check the progress every half hour.
Once Meat is Soft
Remove your casserole dish from the oven, and transfer just the meat into a mixing bowl.
Place the remaining sauce on the stove and bring up to a boil, turn down slightly and continue to simmer until the sauces have thickened to the point it will coat the back of a spoon.
Cut the base off your straw mushrooms and add to your sauce, gently separating them as you do.
Meanwhile, take two forks and rip your meat up into nice small shreds.
Return meat to the sauce once it has thickened. Bring back up to a gentle simmer.
Make Mash
Mash Fantastic?
Making really good mash can be a little tricky. Two very important areas to watch are not to undercook as this will give you hard lumps and not to overcook; this can make your mash gluey. The best way to really know if your potatoes are cooked perfectly is to take one out of the pot and cut it in half with a spoon then eat some. What you want is it to feel soft and flowery in texture.
Peel potatoes and cut in half, cover completely with cold water and a couple of good pinches of salt.
Bring up to the boil and continue to cook until soft right through (refer above). Allow 15-20 minutes.
Drain into a colander and shake off the excess steam.
In the empty potato pot you can now add your cream with some salt and pepper and bring up to the boil.
Boil till the cream starts to thicken (the bubbles will stop being so frothy and the colour will turn more of a yellow).
Remove from heat and place a sieve over the pot and one by one add a potato to the sieve and push through with a spatula or wooden spoon. Do this for all the potatoes.
Return to the heat and use a spatula to beat the potatoes to a nice smooth consistency.
Now add you butter and season well.
Keep beating with the spatula and you will notice it will gloss up and start to pull away from the base of your pot as you mix it.
Plate it Pretty
Pick and wash the watercress. Discard the big bulky stalks and any ugly leaves, what you will mostly keep is the tips.
Dollop a big spoonful of mash onto your plate and spread it into a half moon shape or yin sign.
Fill the inner circle of the mash with ragu.
Top with a bunch of watercress, drizzle over just a touch of truffle or olive oil, a sprinkle of sea salt and top with some shaved Parmesan.
Enjoy!