Beef Stew With Dumplings

The weather lately has been so could, that nothing beets a nice warm hearty stew to warm you up, especially if you have been out in the cold all day. Nothing better for your man to return to then a nice hot stew.

Beef Stew

Ingredients

500 g of diced organic beef

Olive oil

Butter

Seasoning

1 onion

2 celery sticks

6 bacon rashers

3 garlic cloves

Chopped butter nut squash 300g

200g of sweet potato diced

4 sun-dried tomatoes

25 g plain flour

A few porcini mushrooms dried

2 bay leave

Some fresh thyme

Dried oregano

A good splash of Worcestershire sauce

2 cubes beef stock, dissolved in 500ml of hot water

A glass of port or red wine

1 tsp powder English mustard

1 tbsp tomato purée 

A pinch of sugar

Preparation Time: 30 minutes

Cooking Time: 3 hours

Serves: 4

Level : Easy

Method

Drizzle some oil in a lidded pot. Add the onion , garlic, and celery and soften a little. In the meantime while this is cooking, Spread your meat on a chopping board, season , sprinkle with the English mustard and plain flour . Set aside for a while. Crisp the bacon in a frying pan and set aside .

Add the meat to the pot and brown all over.

Add the sun dried tomatoes and the porcini mushrooms to the pan with the onion. Add some Tomato purée .

Add the herbs and the bacon. Add the Worcestershire sauce and cook for a minute , before adding the wine. Cook the wine for another two minutes and add the warm stock. Add a pinch of sugar to the stew. 

Bring everything to a boil and cover. Leave to cook for an hour 30 minutes.

In the meantime you can start the dumplings, and clear the kitchen. 

Time to add the butter nut squash and sweet potato to the pan . Make sure these are cut in chunk as they are vegetables that cook so quickly. You will need to avoid stirring the stew as you might break all the vegetables , and it will look like a mashed up soup.  Cover and leave to cook for another hour. 

The last 30 minutes before serving add the dumplings to the stew, leave them on top and only half submerge and cover with a lid. Remove the bay leaves before serving. Serve with some bread.

Dumplings

Ingredinets

250 g self raising flour

125 g cold butter

Seasoning

A splash of water

Method

Get a mixing bowl and add the flour and season.

With a cheese grater, grate your butter. This is why it need to be cold, as you won't find it easy to grate if it's half melted. 

Get your hands in the mixture and work the butter into the flour, it will look a little like bread crumbs.

Add a splash of water, only a little , you don't want to end up with a dough. Start shaping the dumplings into balls. If not using straight away , leave in the fridge. Take them out 10 minutes before using.