Beef Ragu with Polenta Tops and Steamed Greens
Serves: 4
Time: 6 hours
I love a long slow cooked dish and I think a good ragu could be one of my favourite things about winter. You do need the time for it to cook so this is one of those dishes that is best done on a day off or prepped ahead of schedule. That’s is what I did this week, and it meant that we had two nights where instead of being in the kitchen we were able to take a walk on the beach, making more time for life and less time fussing in the kitchen which was heaven! (Two nights because we ate leftovers for dinner the next night…..yum!)
As a side note, the photo doesn’t do this one justice. I’m afraid I am still learning with the whole photography game and some nights it just does not come out at all how it looks in real life but believe me - it was delicious.
Leftovers
There is plenty enough for leftovers, and if you feel like having a cheat night and loading up on carbs then I would make mashed potatoes.
What you'll need
Did you have leftover Polenta from a few weeks back?
Polenta is one of those ingredients that tends to sit around in the cupboard and not get used in my house, so since we had it on the menu I have been trying hard to use it up.If you don't have any lying around in the cupboard then perhaps you would just prefer to do mashed potatoes instead.
1 brown onion
4 cloves of garlic
3 sprigs of rosemary
8 sprigs of thyme
2 carrots
2 stalks of celery (I’ve used up some from last weeks leftovers)
1.5kg beef
1 cup of red wine
1 tin of whole peeled tomatoes
1 liter beef stock
1 cup of polenta
3 cups of milk
1/2 cup of water
1/2 cup of grated Parmesan
50g butter
200g green beans
2 bunches of asparagus
1/2 packet of baby peas
Prep and Cook
Preheat oven to 150c
Prep Meat
If you went with a large chunk of rump you will want to remove the bulk of the fat from the top. Not all of it, just the bulk. Flip it over and there is what is generally known as silver skin - take a sharp knife and make a slit just underneath it, then run the knife the whole way along to remove it. That is literally all the cleaning that is required, everything else will break down as it cooks.
Set and forget
Once you are confident with a dish it's a lot easier to pop it in the oven and leave it to do it's thing. Personally, I always like to check on the progress for a number of reason:, some ovens run hotter than others so you don't want your meat to accidentally run dry, some meat is naturally softer than other cuts and won't require as much cooking. If you have grass fed free range meat that has aged properly and is beautifully marbled with fat it might need less time, if your meat is a bit pink and tough with not much fat then it will require a lot longer cook time. So it's a good idea to get in the habit of getting in and having a good poke around to see what's going on. My meat was soft after 3 hours.
Cut the meat into large chunks
Use a large non-stick fry pan on a high heat and heat a little bit of oil up, then season your meat well and fry the meat off in batches until each side is a lovely deep brown. The browner the meat the better the flavour.
Remove the meat and repeat until all your meat is browned.
Deglaze the pan with your red wine.
Sauté Veg
Finely dice your onions and garlic.
Roughly chop the thyme and rosemary.
Cut your carrot and celery into small dice.
In a casserole dish heat a tablespoon of oil and sauté all ingredients until soft.
Add your meat and the red wine, the whole peeled tomatoes crushing them as you go and the beef stock. Season well and bring up to a boil.
Place a lid on your dish and pop in the oven for 4 hours (check every hour to see how it’s looking).
Prep Polenta
Place a medium sized pot on the stove with your milk, water, butter and some salt and pepper and bring up to a gentle simmer.
Use a balloon whisk and whisk the milk while very gradually adding in your polenta.
Turn the heat down a touch and use a wooden spoon to beat in the parmesan cheese.
Remove from the heat and allow to sit for 5 minutes.
Spray or brush with oil a large flat oven tray.
Then spoon your mix out onto the tray and spread out to the thickness roughly of your finger.
I like to use wet hands to flatten it out…. But it will still be hot! So you might find it easier to use a large spoon and have a cup of cold water on hand to dip your spoon into.
Cover with baking paper and pop in the fridge.
Once the polenta has set you can cut it into shapes to go on the top. I went with circles but to avoid waste you might prefer squares.
Shred Meat
Once your meat has softened use a couple of forks to pull the meat apart roughly. How does your sauce look? If your meat only did 3 hours, you will probably need to reduce the liquid more so that it isn’t so watery, if your meat cooked for 6 hours then you should already be nice and thick and delicious.
Spoon your meat mixture into a casserole dish
Melt a tablespoon of butter then arrange your polenta on top of the meat, now brush the top of the polenta with some butter and grate over some fresh Parmesan.
Sprinkle with sea salt and bake till golden on top. Allow approx 20 minutes depending on how deep your dish is, you want the meat to be bubbling hot.
Blanche Veg
Remove the woody ends from the asparagus and take the bottoms off your beans.
Drop into a pot of boiling water along with your peas and with a dash of oil and a large pinch of salt and cook for approx 1 minute.
Plate it Pretty
You’ll need a board to sit the ragu on and a serving bowl for the veg. This dish is more of a self serve because I find it is a dinner that we normally have seconds on.
Enjoy!
Lunch tomorrow
We didn’t end up having this as our leftovers for lunch so we had it again for dinner the next night instead.