Slow cooked shredded beef sauce
Slow cooked shredded beef sauce
Below the recipe read more info about the cut of beef, the flavourings, the method to follow and how to use and store the sauce
Ingredients
• 1.6 kg chuck steak, or another beef casserole piece
• 1 medium carrot, diced
• 1 long celery stick, chopped
• 200 g mushrooms, chopped
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp dry rosemary
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• ¾ tsp cinnamon, ground
• ½ tsp black pepper
• 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
• ½ cup red wine, merlot
• 1 ½ cup tomato passata
• 2 ½ cups of hot water, or just enough to just cover the meat
• 15 parsley sprigs, washed and chopped
• 500 g Casarecce pasta, optional
Instructions
1. Preheat the oven to 170°C fan force. Looking at the chuck steak if there is a lot of fat on them use a large flameproof baking dish to render the fat. Render the fat for 8-10min on both sides on hot/medium heat with some extra virgin olive oil. If you do not have a flameproof baking dish use a large frying pan and then transfer the contents into a baking dish before placing the contents in the oven.
2. Remove the chuck steak on a plate and set aside. Add the carrots, celery and mushrooms and sauté them briefly in the meat juices/fat. Add the rest of the ingredients, except the parsley, and stir them to combine. Return the chuck steak to the flameproof baking dish and cover using some baking paper and then aluminum foil.
3. Cook for 3.5 hours covered at 170°C. After that time use two forks to separate the chuck steak into smaller pieces. Return the baking dish back to the oven at 200°C for 30min uncovered this time to help reduce the sauce. Use two forks again to shred the beef now and then toss through the chopped parsley. Serve the shredded beef with some cooked pasta or leave them as they are in smaller pieces to serve with mash or rice etc.
4. If you are using this sauce with pasta, cook the pasta separately and toss it through the shredded beef sauce. I used 500g of pasta with half of the beef sauce which was the perfect amount. The other half I stored in the freezer, in sealed containers once it cooled down, for another day.
THE CUT OF BEEF
For the slow cooked shredded beef sauce, I usually use chuck steak as I found that it has the perfect balance of tender meat to flavourful fat. I’ve also used blade steak and other slow cooking pieces, which worked well also but I found that I had to add extra olive oil to the dish. You can find chuck steak easily at supermarkets and butchers, the difference being though the size and thickness they are available. The beef is slow cooked for a fair bit of time so overall the size doesn’t affect the tenderness greatly.
THE FLAVOURINGS
Herbs and spices can do wonders to a dish, especially when the meal is slow cooked and the flavours have time to develop further. Basic seasonings used here include: dry rosemary, cinnamon, garlic powder (may be replaced with fresh minced garlic) black pepper and salt. When I use red wine in my cooking I usually choose merlot because of its sweetness in comparison to a shiraz. And in general, if the red wine you are using in your cooking is not one that is nice enough for you to drink… then don’t add it to your food either.
METHOD TO FOLLOW
Slow cooking without an actual slow cooker, usually involves baking the food covered at a low temperature. Based on the amount of fat found on the meat and the recipe sometimes you might need to render the fat first. To do so you can use a flameproof baking dish, just like my recipe below, or a separate frying pan. Once that is done, all you have to do is add the rest of the ingredients and aromatics you want in the dish and bake it covered. Lastly, depending on the type of recipe, you might need to bake the food uncovered for a short time to give it that extra colour or reduce the liquid further.
HOW TO USE AND STORE THE SAUCE
This is the most versatile slow cooked beef sauce! For this blog post, I chose to shred the beef and toss the sauce through some precooked pasta. However, the possibilities are endless. You could treat it just like mince sauce and use the shredded beef in tacos, wraps, pasta bakes, jacket potato filling or even salads. Otherwise, if you choose in the end not to shred the beef you could leave it as small pieces and accompany it with a smooth buttery potato mash or even a rice pilaf.
For this particular recipe, I only used half of the slow cooked shredded beef sauce through the cooked pasta. The other half I stored in reusable containers and placed it in the freezer once it cooled down. That means next time I can use the sauce in another type of meal if I want without having to set it to cook for four hours beforehand. From frozen, it is best if you thaw the sauce overnight in the refrigerator. Alternatively, you can defrost it using the appropriate microwave settings.
