Baking
57 recipes
"With apologies to Matthew Kemp’s original recipe from Restaurant Balzac days. Serve with pureed potatoes and a green vegetable for contrast – perhaps steamed bok choy for taste and texture, or double-shelled broad beans for bursts of love"– Alice McCormick.
As the beef marinades you begin to see where this dish is going - choose a really good quality wine and port as the dish does centre around this. A “boeuf en daube” is a Provencal recipe using a cheap cut of beef slow cooked in red wine and aromatics. The marinade will infuse the meat so thoroughly that the aroma alone at this stage hints at the quality of this dish. Begin a day ahead as per the recipe to truly get the best out of the flavours.
If you follow the recipe step by step without rushing you will realise it is relatively easy and just needs coordination and patience. The result is a melt in the mouth, tender, full bodied beef dish - one for a special occasion, yet also affordable.
From chef Matthew Kemp, who is famous for making the best out of cheaper cuts of meat - this is a fantastic example of that.
Serves 4. GF. DF. Freezes well.
Pictured: Daube of beef
Ingredients
- 4 beef cheeks or 1kg beef shin*
- Mix up a marinade with -
- 1 carrot cut into chunks
- 1 diced onion
- 1 stick or two of celery, chopped
- Several cloves garlic smashed up
- 1 bay leaf
- Sprig of thyme
- Good grind of pepper
- Some juniper berries smashed up a bit
- Whole bottle or more of good strong red wine -Shiraz/Cabernet Sauvignon
- Half a bottle of port
- *ask the butcher to trim the outside sinew and any excess fat
- Beef cheeks can be cut into two halves each and the shin into very large dice.
Method
Place beef cheeks into a big shallow dish and cover with marinade and fridge overnight.
Turn after six hours or so.
When ready to cook, preheat the oven to 150°C.
Drain meat and vegetables from the marinade, reserving the liquid and keeping the vegetables.
Heat olive oil in a pan and brown the cheeks well (dredge them in flour for thicker sauce if you want).
Sautee the vegetables from the marinade – or substitute or add some freshly prepared ones if you’re feeling industrious - until caramelised.
Put meat and vegetables at the base of a large ovenproof pot with sprigs of thyme between the pieces.
Deglaze pan with the reserved marinade and reduce till syrupy. Pour to cover beef and vegetables.
Top up with about 1ltr chicken (or use veal) stock. Bring to a simmer. Cover directly with baking paper.
Cook in the oven for about five hours, checking every hour or so that there is enough liquid. Add more stock (or water) if drying out.
When ready, remove meat, strain liquid and reduce to syrup if necessary, serve nice large pieces of meat with vegetables around and the sauce poured over.
Dietary preferences
- Dairy-Free with ingredient checks
