Luke's steak and ale with shitake mushrooms (Beef Recipes)

Member Name: edinburgher

Product:	Beef Recipes
Date:	05/03/09 (149 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Delicious winter warmer

Disadvantages: Cleaing the casserole afterwards!

A thick, meaty and wholesome stew with earthy flavours and a gravy that cries out for some creamy mashed potatoes to crush into it! Great for winter, with minimal chef skills required. Try this one with potatoes and spring greens, or roasted root vegetables for those of you who find the spring greens a little too fibrous. It's a British classic with a twist of exotic flavours - courtesy of the shitake mushrooms, soy sauce and paprika. Not to worry though, all ingredients can be tracked down on the high street.

*Cost and timing*

This one will serve four people with vegetable accompaniment and costs approximately £6 to make. This could be trimmed down to about £5 if you're willing and able to use slightly cheaper steak and a generic ale or lager. It takes approximately ½ an hour/30 minutes to prepare the dish and a further 2 ¼ hours/135 minutes to cook it, giving you an opportunity to finish off the bottle of ale with a good book.

*Ingredients*

500 g Stewing steak (remove any fat and cut into chunks roughly 1" square)
2 Medium onions (half the onions and then slice finely with a sharp knife)
3-4 Cloves garlic (crushed, or cooked whole in the skin)
100-150 g Shitake mushrooms (Give these a quick brush to remove any particles of dirt and cut them in half. Don't wash them, as they go soggy.)
100 ml Ale (use the best you can lay hands on - I used St. Peter's Organic Ale and it was lovely. See www.stpetersbrewery.co.uk)
Olive oil (extra virgin)
Plain flour
2 Tbsp Dark soy sauce (reduced sodium varieties may not taste as good)
1 Tbsp HP sauce (I used the reduced salt and sugar version, but any generic brown sauce should work well.)
1 Chicken stock cube
Black pepper
Paprika
100 ml Water

*Instructions*

1. Prepare the vegetables as per the ingredients list.
2. Preheat your oven to 170 degrees celsius (150 degrees if fan-assisted).
3. Add the onions to a casserole dish with a slug of olive oil, tossing them to coat. Put this into the oven (lid off) for 10 minutes to cook.
4. Prepare the steak and put roughly 1" of plain flour in a soup plate. Dip each chunk of steak into this and make sure it is covered in flour - making sure to tap off any excess.
5. Heat a frying pan to a high heat and add a generous amount of olive oil (roughly 3 tbsp).
6. Quickly brown the steak and take your casserole from the oven, adding the steak on top of the onions. There's no need to stir at this stage.
7. Prepare your gravy by dissolving a chicken stock cube in 100 ml of just-boiled water. Add the soy sauce and HP sauce, stirring until it is mixed together. Lastly, add the ale and allow this a minute to settle. Pour this over the steak and onion and apply black pepper liberally.
8. Cover the casserole with its lid and allow to cook in the oven for 1 ½ hours/90 minutes (no peeking!)
9. Mix 1 heaped tbsp of flour with a small amount of cold water (perhaps 1" of water) in a glass using a spoon. Make sure that this forms a smooth paste, without any lumps.
10. Take the casserole dish out of the oven {and enjoy the smell} as you add your flour and water mixture, stirring until it has been mixed in to the dish. This will thicken up the gravy and is a key step. Don't make the mistake of adding flour straight into the stew, as it will just make unpalatable lumps that will ruin your cooking!
11. Add the shitake mushrooms and a level tsp of dried paprika. As both of these are strong but sensitive flavours it's best to add them last so that they stand out. Stir the stew so that everything is coated in the rich gravy.
12. Return to the oven for a final ¾ of an hour/45 minutes, bringing the heat down to 150 degrees celsius (125 degrees if fan-assisted). You want the stew to be roasting hot without boiling away to nothing.
13. Serve this on warmed plates with some lovely vegetables and a glass of ale (or wine, if that suits better).

© Edinburgher/Luke Fojut at www.dooyoo.co.uk

Summary: A british classic with some exotic touches