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Posts Tagged ‘I Know How to Cook’

Sunday ‘Boeuf au Riz’

Posted in Beef, Food, tagged , , , , , on 10 April 2011| Leave a Comment »

Steaming hot in the casserole … this is so tasty and shows you how flavours can intensify with slow cooking. This has very few ingredients, but the three and a half hours cooking makes the flavours burst on your tongue and the beef melt (we carved it perfectly with a blunt knife). We’ll definitely be doing this again. The recipe come from the French answer to Delia: “I know how to cook” which is published by Phaidon and celebrates the tradition of cooking rather than the celebrity and glamour: tasty dish after dish using simple ingredients. Classic French cookery for the home cook rather than the chef.

Boeuf au riz (Beef with rice) – serves 6

  • 30g butter
  • 900g stewing beef, in one piece
  • 100g onion, chopped
  • 1 bouquet garni (we raided the herb garden and bundled up some rosemary, thyme, bay, parsley and oregano)
  • 750ml stock
  • 250g long grain rice

Heat the butter on medium-high heat in a heavy-based casserole.

Add the beef and brown all over.

Add the onion and bouquet garni and season generously with pepper and a little salt.

Pour in the stock, cover and cook on a low heat for 3 hours.

Rinse the rice well and add to the casserole and cook for another 30 minutes.

That’s it – enjoy!

Wine suggestion: A full-bodied Pinot Noir from Hawkes Bay in New Zealand (or somewhere else in the New World). Ours was from Morton Estate which you can pick up in Mitchell’s (say hi to Jono while you’re there).

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Whiting Dugléré

Posted in Fish, Food, France, Wine, tagged , , , , , , , , on 20 January 2011| Leave a Comment »

Jono picked up this Whiting for just over €3 for 500g – the challenge then was finding a recipe to use it with. This one is from “I Know How to Cook” (the French Silver Spoon) which we got at Christmas but hadn’t used yet. The sauce is delicious and the fish cooks just right. Next time you see some bargain whiting, grab it!

Whiting  to serve 6 (we only used half the amount of fish but kept the quantities for the sauce)

  • 1/2 an onion, chopped
  • 3-4 shallots, chopped
  • small handful flat-leaf parsley, chopped
  • 250g tomatoes, skinned, deseeded and torn up small
  • six fillets of whiting (or whole whiting, scaled and cleaned)
  • 400ml white wine
  • 50g butter, plus a bit more to grease the dish
  • 30g flour
  • juice of a lemon
  • 2 tbsp creme fraiche

Preheat the oven to 220C and grease a flameproof dish with butter.

Mix onion, shallot, parsley and tomatoes together in a bowl and season. Spoon into your greased dish.

Put the fish on top and pour the wine over everything.

Bring to the boil over a high heat and then cover with buttered greaseproof paper.

Bake in the oven for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, soften the butter slightly (if its come straight from the fridge) and mix to a paste with the flour.

Transfer the fish to a serving dish and keep warm (but don’t put it back in your hot oven at this stage or it will over cook).

Boil the juices in the pan and reduce.

Gradually stir in the paste, making sure each bit is fully blended in before you add more.

Stir in lemon juice to taste, add the creme fraiche and adjust seasoning.

Pour the sauce over the fish and put some more parsley over the top.

Serve with some steamed baby spuds.

Wine suggestion: Kelly from the wine shop in Harvey Nichols (Dundrum) suggested La Griffe Bernard Chéreau, Muscadet Sevre et Maine (€15)  and it was a great match: honeyed, minerally and rounded. I know we always suggest Muscadet with white fish but it goes!

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