Hearty Winter Beef Stew with Dumplings
Classic French style winter stew with chunky vegetables and dumplings
Ingredients
For the stew:
- 1 onion roughly chopped
- 2 parsnips quartered
- 4 carrots halved
- ½ a butternut squash deseeded and diced
- a few sprigs of fresh sage
- a few sprigs of fresh rosemary
- olive oil
- 1 knob unsalted butter
- 800 g stewing steak or beef skirt cut into 5cm pieces
- plain flour
- 500 g small potatoes
- 2 tbsp Tomato puree
- ½ bottle red wine
- 300 ml beef stock
- 1 clove Garlic
For the dumplings:
- 100 g self-raising flour
- 50 g shredded suet Atora
- 1 pinch salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 1 tsp rosemary leaves finely chopped
- 1 tsp thyme leaves finely chopped
To Serve:
- parsley chopped
- crusty bread
Instructions
To Make the Casserole:
- Preheat the oven to 160ºC/300ºF/gas 2.
- Peel and roughly chop the onion, peel and quarter the parsnips and peel and halve the carrots. Deseed and roughly dice the squash. Pick the sage leaves.
- Heat a little oil and the butter in a casserole pan on a medium heat, add the onion and sage leaves, then fry for 3 to 4 minutes.
- Meanwhile, toss the meat in a little seasoned flour, then add it to the pan with all the vegetables, the tomato purée, wine and stock, then gently stir together. Season generously with black pepper and just a little sea salt.
- Bring to the boil, place a lid on top, then place in the oven until the meat is tender
To Make the Dumplings:
- Put the flour in a medium bowl and season with salt and pepper.
- Add the suet and rub together with your fingers to make rough crumbs. Stir in the rosemary, thyme and parsley, then pour in 2 tablespoons of cold water and mix using a round bladed knife to a soft dough. Cut the dough into 8 even-sized pieces and shape into balls.
- Gently place the dumplings on the surface of the casserole and cook in the oven, uncovered, for 20 more mins until they are risen and the lamb is meltingly tender.
To Serve:
- Scatter with chopped parsley and serve with crusty bread.