Week 11 - The Prawn Cocktail Years - Simon Hopkinson and Lindsey Bareham

The Ewing and I we very lucky to enjoy a trip to Paris for our second wedding anniversary a few weeks ago (we actually got married in 2012, but we chose to do it on leap day. Despite the four year warning, I still forgot to buy a card...). 

Predictably, the food was wonderful and we ate our way through most of the classics; steak frites, onion soup, profiteroles, rum baba, daily croissants, and crottins of deep fried chevre. Or, more prosaically, goat's cheese nuggets, picked up from McDonalds on a drunken walk home from dinner.

It seems you can't have too much of a good thing, as on our return all I could think about was how we had friends coming for Sunday lunch and how I wanted to cook boeuf bourginon or coq au vin, after finding recipes for both in Simon Hopkinson and Lindsey Bareham's wonderfully retro Prawn Cocktail years. Finally settling on the beef, as we had some beautiful bone-in shin sitting waiting in the freezer.

As things turned out, they had to unavoidably cancel last minute. But the beef shin was already out of the freezer and we had rather a lot of fresh beer we had picked up after our local brewery had shut for the last time (RIP Fishers), that was waiting to be drunk. So I changed tack and went for plan C, again seeking inspiration from the Prawn Cocktail Years, and plumped for carbonnade flamande, a Belgian stew slow cooked with onions, beef and beer.

As it happens it made a fitting end for one of the last casks of Red Rye, one of my favourites of all the beers Fisher's brewed, and there was still plenty left for us to enjoy alongside the finished stew. I also served the classic Belgian accompaniment wortelstoemp, or mashed potato and carrot, which not only soaked up all the beery gravy, but is also really fun to say. 

Alternatively pair with plain boiled spuds, chips or slices of crusty baguette. And a beer.

Carbonnade flamande - adapted from the Prawn Cocktail Years

2 kg of chuck, cheek or shin, cut in inch cubes or left in slices

4 large onions, peeled, halved and sliced

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 pint/500ml bottle of beer or ale

500ml water

1 beef stock cube

1 heaped tbsp of flour

1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg

2 bay leaves

1 heaped tbsp wholegrain mustard

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Olive oil

Brown the beef in batches in olive oil in a frying pan until nicely coloured and set aside.

Heat a good glug of olive oil in a large casserole dish, add onions and cook on a medium heat until they are soft. Add the garlic and cook for another couple of minutes.

Add flour and the browned beef to the onions and stir well.

Add the beer, water, stock cube, nutmeg, bay leaves, mustard, salt and pepper and bring to a simmer.

Put the lid on the casserole dish and place in the oven. Cook for at least 2 and a hours, stirring every now and then, or until the beef is falling apart. Remove the lid for the last half an hour of cooking if it looks like there is too much liquid.