Today’s culinary delight is beef stew. This is in part inspired by BNP leader Nick Griffin’s frankly weird foray in TV cheffery. This recipe is largely similar to his except I replaced the virulent racism, ignorance and bigotry, with bacon Job-Seeker John style. I find it gives much better flavour and you won’t hate yourself (or immigrants) as much. So until Nigel Farage treats us to his divine Queen of Puddings recipe, or Geert Wilders reveals the secret of his family’s traditional waffle recipe (I know waffles are traditionally Belgian but I couldn’t think of any traditional Dutch foods; and I bet you can’t either) you shall have to make do with my take on Beef Stew.
This recipe is not gospel, there are endless varations. Leave out the bacon, use different herbs, use red wine instead of beer, add some mushrooms, use different vegetables, do whatever you want.
Ingredients
• 2 tbsps cooking oil- 10p
• 4 rashers bacon, sliced- £1
• 1k beef, cubed (I used foreign beef; it turns up on time and works harder for less money than local British beef)- £6
• 1 onion, sliced- 30p
• 2 sticks celery, sliced- 30p
• 2 carrots, cubed- My surly but surprisingly generous greengrocer gave these to me for free, they would usually be about 30p
• 1 swede, cubed (turnip if you are using Irish-lingo)- same as the carrots, would be 40p
• 1 tsp thyme- 5p
• 2 bay leaves- 10p
• 4 tbsps pearl barley- 20p
• 1 can Guiness (feel free to use ale, something dark and quite rich, I had to use Guiness being Irish)- £1.20
• 1 tbsp tomato puree- 10p
• 1 beef stock cube- 10p (or a nice stock cube- 40p; or 200ml actual beef stock)
• 1 tbsp butter- 20p
• 1tbsp flour- 5p
Method
1. Preheat oven to 140 degrees.
2. Season the beef. Brown the beef and bacon in the oil until well coloured, add to an oven proof dish.
3. In the same pan the meat was cooked in sweat the onions and celery until soft but not coloured. Add to the meat.
4. Deglaze the same pan with the Guiness, add to the pot.
5. Add the carrots, swede, thyme, bay, tomato puree and stock to the pot.
6. Cover the pot and cook in the oven for 2-3hrs.
7. 40mins from the end of the cooking time stir in the barley.
8. When stew is cooked, drain off and reserve the cooking liquid. This is the slightly complicated part…
9. Melt the butter in the pan and stir in the flour. Cook this until the mixture is a dark brown colour, then add the cooking liquid in three stages stirring vigorously on each addition to work out the lumps. This should produce a thick rich gravy, check the seasoning ( I like it quite peppery).
10. Add the gravy to the rest of the stew.
11. Serve with mash, jacket potatoes or bread and some buttered greens.
Dumplings
I wouldn’t dream of posting a stew recipe lacking in dumplings; that would be cruel.
Ingredients
• 100g suet (or cold butter if suet is unavailable)
• 200g self-raising flour
• 50ml water
• 2 tbsps chopped herbs such as parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme.
Method
1. Rub the flour and suet together in your hands until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. If using butter grate it first, it will make life easier. Make sure to leave the bowl of butter out somewhere where an unsuspecting individual may mistake it for grated cheese and grab a big mouthful, it’s really funny when that happens…
2. Mix in the herbs and season the mixture.
3. Add the water and bring the mixture together with your hands.
4. Roll into balls the size should be a little smaller than golf-balls.
5. Press these into the fully cooked stew and cook for a further 30mins.
Peace out ya’ll
-Job-Seeker John
austerilicious 