Cooking with class
Made another "Week-o-stew" with some '03 Penfolds 407 in it. The wine was reported to me as being "over the hill". It wasn't. It was lovely.
Ingredients:
One quantity of cheap beef (This used blade), trimmed and cubed - say a kilo
800g of tinned, diced tomatos (preferrably roma) - 2 tins
A large (not Lebanese) eggplant, diced as finely as you can be bothered.
A couple of biggish, chopped carrots
Half a bunch of Celery, chopped
Some stock (or water... or water and stock powder/cubes)
A couple of onions, diced
3-4 cloves of garlic, crushed
Oil for shallow-frying (Like olive oil)
Method:
Brown the meat in a little oil in small batches and set aside
Add the onion to the pan with a bit more oil and run it round till it goes translucent.
Add the garlic and give it a couple more laps
Return the meat to the pan & stir a bit
Add the carrot, stir
Add the eggplant, stir
Add the celery, stir
Keep stirring for a bit till it looks like everything's at least warm
Throw-in the tomatoes and top-up with stock to cover, stirring
Bring to boil, reduce and simmer for ~10 mins
Put into a baking pan and cover with a lid or aluminium foil and put in the oven for an hour
Remove lid/foil, stir and replace in oven for another hour (without covering)
Depending on the type, age and preparation of your meat, you may need one or two more hours cooking, possibly topping-up with more liquid/stock and/or covering. Test a piece and do the tenderness/hunger tradeoff calculation in your head.
Bonus points:
Dust the meat with flour, salt and pepper before frying. This is easily done by tossing about 1/4 of a cup of plain flour with some salt and freshly ground pepper in a plastic shopping bag (Make sure there are no holes - especially at the seams), throwing some meat cubes in, inflating the bag, pinching the neck in your hand to seal and shaking it about like some dadaist pinata. Remove meat pieces, tapping-off excess flour into the bag before frying
Ad 2-3 bay leaves to the stew and remove when you serve (if you can find 'em again).
Put in a couple of tablespoons of balsamic vinegar and/or half a cup of red wine (Doesn't have to be 407... really) just before you cover it & bake.