Beef and Guinness Casserole

This is a real winter warmer. I would normally cook this on a Sunday night for myself and my wife. We would have it Monday and freeze the rest for another time. The sauce has a deep golden brown colour with a rich intense flavour. The Guinness adds a real deep finish to the sauce.

You can always add a squeeze of lemon juice to the finished sauce to make the sauce a bit more refreshing.

A casserole is a great way of cooking as it is all done in one pot and the preparation time is short. This is a relatively easy recipe to try out.

Beef and Guinness Casserole

by Trevor Thornton

Serves 6 - 8 persons

Difficulty Easy

Ingredients

20g butter
2 tbsp olive oil
1Kg diced beef/stewing steak
salt and pepper
500ml Guinness, (1 large can)
2 tbsp tomato puree
500ml chicken stock, (2 stock cubes)
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2-3 bay leaf
2 sprigs of thyme, (1tsp dried)
1 sprig of Rosemary, (1/2 tsp dried)
2-3 carrots, turned into barrels
450g/1 lbs button mushrooms, 2 small packets
1-2 medium onions, peeled and halved
2 tbsp parsley, roughly chopped

Method

Firstly preheat the oven to 180ºC/Gas 4

Heat the butter and oil in the casserole dish over a medium high heat. Put in one third of the meat and brown on all sides for 3-4 minutes. Season the meat as it is browning with salt and pepper. Do not put in all the meat as you want the meat to take on colour. If you overcrowd the pan the meat will begin to stew. Transfer the meat to a separate dish and repeat this procedure until all the meat has been browned. You will find that some of the meat will stick on the base. This is no problem as this gives extra flavour to the finished sauce.

Return the meat to the pan and add the tomato puree. Don't forget to add the meat resting juices in also. Cook for 2-3 minutes whilst stirring. This cooks out the tomato puree and removes some of it's bitterness. Place the Guinness, stock, Worcestershire sauce, bay leaf, thyme and rosemary into the pot and turn the heat up to high. Use a wooded spoon to scrape up all the residue from the bottom of the pot, this is called deglazing.

Bring the mixture up to the boil and place the lid on and transfer to the middle shelf of an oven for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Take the pot out every 30 minutes or so and stir. Just in case anything catches on the bottom.

After 1 hour and 15 minutes add the carrots, onions and the mushrooms. Place back in the oven with the lid off. The mushrooms release a lot of moisture at this point and some of the moisture will need to escape. Cook for a further 20-30 minutes. When ready take out of the oven and stir in the chopped parsley. Check for seasoning as you can add more at this stage.

Serve into warm bowls with some creamy mash or tasty colcannon. If you want the sauce to become a little thicker you can pour the sauce out of the pot and reduce until it is thick and glossy. Alternatively you can add cornflower to thicken the sauce.