We had a small piece of steak in the freezer which wasn’t really enough for a whole meal but was too much to throw away. We had no plan for dinner tonight so ended up stretching the steak by adding lots of vegetables to make fajitas. We haven’t had these for ages and they were really good, not sure why we left it so long.

We were out all day last Sunday and ended up in the pub in need of something to eat. When this happens I always avoid the Traditional Sunday Roast since I don’t think it’s ever as good as the real home-cooked version. For some reason, last Sunday I broke my golden rule and was rewarded with a plate of food that was edible but by no means remarkable. It gave me a craving for a proper Sunday lunch so this morning, Stephen went off in search of beef while I got on with the accompaniments.

When he returned, he was clutching a large bag which contained a rib of beef, well two ribs actually. We followed Hugh’s instructions again but were taken by surprise at the speed the beef cooked which meant we ended up with meat that was just over the medium-rare we prefer. This was a tasty cut of beef though so the flavour wasn’t affected too much. We really must remember to pay more attention to the meat while it’s cooking though since this is a situation we find ourselves in all too often.

Great Yorkshire pudding (that wasn’t frozen like last week), crunchy roast potatoes, average parsnips and a decent selection of vegetables made for a good lunch. There was plenty of excellent gravy too, another bonus of eating at home and not a pub/restaurant.

The “This Week Last Year” plugin on the sidebar tells me that we ate roast beef exactly a year ago. A further search through the archives reveals that we haven’t had it since. Far too long.

An old favourite this evening, pasta bolognese/bolognaise. I keep beef mince in the freezer for emergencies. What sort of emergency I’m imagining is anyone’s guess, we live 15 minutes from the centre of London and have at least three butchers and as many supermarkets and deli’s within walking distance of our front door. Still, I like to be prepared. Until I actually need to use the freezer for something and have to clear it out, hence the appearance of the bolognese this evening.

I was going to make a double portion and add some pork mince to the beef and then re-freeze the leftovers. That would have defeated the purpose of defrosting the beef mince in the first place though so I went with just the beef.

This was good, it’s always good but we just don’t cook it that often since there are so many other things to cook. It varies each time, depending on what’s in the fridge but our basic bolognese recipe is here. This time I used dried herbs since the plants outside are looking a bit sorry for themselves and I didn’t have any fresh ones to use up. I did however have quite a lot of half-empty pasta packets hanging around so I cooked both the farfalle and the lumaconi and we had half each.

We have two potentially contradicting ideals: we like to try new dishes and recipes and we don’t like to waste food. The contradiction occurs because the former often requires us to buy ingredients for new recipes that we only use part of and then they hang around in the cupboards for ages because we don’t like to throw them away. Sometimes though, attempts to use up these ingredients can work out very well. That is what happened on Thursday evening when we decided that we really needed to use up the various half-packets of rice noodles that we had open.

Kerri’s idea for using them up was to have them with stir fried beef. She bought some sirloin from our local butcher and when I got home, we started to prepare and cook it. This turned out very well, much better than at least I expected it to based on the fact that it was a relatively impromptu, made-up recipe. It went something like this:

Beef stir fry
300g sirloin steak, cut into thin strips
2 birds eye chillis, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 small to medium onion, finely sliced
8 baby corn, halved lengthways
handful of mange tout or sugar snap peas
soy sauce
Thai fish sauce
4 kaffir lime leaves, thinly sliced
juice of half a lime

Heat a wok over medium to high heat. When it is hot, add a little vegetable oil and then add the sliced beef. Stir frequently to prevent it sticking or burning. After a minute of stir frying, add a teaspoon of fish sauce and after two minutes add another teaspoon. After three minutes, remove the beef to a plate and return the wok to the heat.

Add a little more oil and the onion, garlic and chilli. Stir fry over high heat for one minute, then add the baby corn. After one minute, add the mange tout and the sliced lime leaves along with a tablespoon or so each of soy sauce and fish sauce. You can vary the amount of the soy and fish sauces depending on your taste; I tend to add quite a lot of both of them because I love the strong, rich flavours that they impart but that might not be everyone’s preference.

After another two minutes, add the beef back to the wok along with a splash of water, then turn down the heat and put a lid on it. Let it steam for a few minutes. Then remove the lid and add the lime juice and any more soy or fish sauce that you want to for seasoning.

Back to what started the whole thing – the rice noodles. We had two types; one that needed to soak in hot water for five minutes and one that needed fifteen. Having soaked and then drained them both, once the stir fry was cooked we put it into a bowl and added a little more oil to the wok. Added a little more onion and garlic to the wok for 30 seconds, then added the noodles and stir fried them for a couple of minutes before serving.

As I said in the comment at the beginning of the post, this rather made-up dish turned out very well. Adding the fish sauce to the steak while stir frying it imparted a wonderful umami flavour to it while it still retained its innate steakiness and reminded at times of eating in a good steakhouse. Clearly the butcher had supplied us with some really good steak. I was worried that a lack of ginger or lemongrass would let the dish down, but the lime leaves and lime juice picked it up and it didn’t lack anything. Delicious.

(Apologies for the terrible picture, I should have waited for the steam to dissipate. And set the whole thing up a bit better).

I knew when we bought the brisket that there would be lots leftover so I planned to turn the rest into tacos or wraps with the addition of some chilli sauce and some black beans. That chilli sauce is brilliant at turning leftovers into something exciting but it does pay to use a variety of dried chillies so that you can layer up the flavours. I get these at Borough Market but there are various online stockists that carry them too.

As it turned out, Stephen was out this evening though so I just had the beef and beans without the bread, cheese, guacamole, sour cream, etc. The beef was certainly much more enjoyable eaten this way but the beans were the real star.

I cooked them in the oven using a no-soak method I read about on eGullet. I don’t generally soak my beans anymore anyway but I haven’t tried cooking them in the oven before.

Oven-Cooked Black Beans

Cover the beans in water, add salt (since I knew I was going to be turning these into a variation of refried beans, I also added chilli, garlic and onion) and bring to the boil on the hob. Put a lid on the pot and then transfer to a pre-heated oven (at 150 degrees) and cook for 75 minutes.

Ours took a little longer than this and we did need to top up the water with boilng water from the kettle but otherwise, the method worked out really well. We had the oven on anyway and the resulting beans were tender and evenly cooked, something that can be difficult for us to achieve on the hob since our gas feed runs high and keeping an even temperature with a diffuser plate isn’t that easy. I’ll definitely be using this method again.

This has been on my “things-to-cook-soon” list for ages. I’m a big fan of slow-roast dishes and thought this might be a good alternative to our favourite slow roast shoulder of lamb. Well, I’m not sure if we did something wrong (seasoned and braised in a couple of pints of stock and wine at 160 degrees for three hours. There were carrots, onions, celery, bay, garlic and some dried herbs in there too) or if we just had a poor piece of meat but we really didn’t like it.

The gravy had plenty of flavour but the beef itself was tasteless and dull. We bought a larger piece of beef than we needed for today’s lunch so that we could use the leftovers tomorrow which I’m hoping will be better. I can’t see us cooking brisket to eat this way again though.

Of course we braai’d while we were away. Several times. This was a traditional chops and ‘wors (boerewors) braai that we fancied up with some salad and corn. I think we were supposed to just eat meat really, possibly with some soft rolls for the boerewors, or some pap but the fridge was full of salad and I don’t really like the sound of pap.

This particular boerewors didn’t behave very well and despite Stephen’s excellent technique with the braai tongs, it fell apart. We got it from Woolworths (Marks and Spencer is called Woolworths in SA), perhaps if we had stopped trying to posh everything up and just got it from Pick and Pay then it would have stayed in it’s spiral. It didn’t affect the taste though, obviously, and it was good. Mostly beef I think (again, not traditional I don’t think) and with a good amount of spice.

So, as I mentioned, just after Christmas, Stephen and I flew out of freezing London to sunny South Africa. We arrived to bright sunshine and heat that peaked at 40 degrees. It was glorious and very difficult to get back on the plane to come home.

The first real meal we ate was fondue, to celebrate New Year’s Eve. When Stephen was growing up, this was the traditional dish and one which I was really looking forward to. Along with the chocolate fondue that I’m familiar with for dessert, there was also a savoury fondue which wasn’t cheese. I don’t know a lot about fondue but I was under the impression that savoury = cheese, apparently not. This kind of fondue is oil with a selection of stuff to fry in it. Genius! We started with salmon trout which is similar to the salmon we have here but meatier and then followed up with steak. There were also potatoes (which weren’t supposed to be submerged in the oil but I couldn’t resist) and the “veggies” which we ate at every meal and were generally a combination of cooked vegetables and salad. It was great, such a sociable way to eat and also perfect for people with different tastes since it’s so easy to cook the meat to your preferred doneness.

I meant to ask Stephen’s mom what kind of chocolate she used for the dessert fondue since it didn’t have that oily texture I’ve experienced with the chocolate fondue I’ve had before. We mostly ate fruit with this, since we were all quite full of fried stuff but there were some marshmallows too, at Stephen’s request and the cake worked very well, just so long as you didn’t leave it in the chocolate for too long.

You have no idea how hard it was for me to leave that beautiful red and white fondue set behind. If I’d have had more space in my bag then I would have begged Stephen’s mother for it. I’ve been busy scouring charity shops for a set since I got back so you can expect to see more fondue very soon. I’m definitely keen to try a cheese one.

Oxtail is something I normally think of as being accompanied by mashed potatoes but I’ve seen various references to it online as being served with “egg noodles”. I’m a big fan of pasta so was keen to give it a go and put together a recipe I thought would befit some glossy tagliatelle (papardelle was my first choice but I didn’t have any).

The ragu was similar to the hundreds of other ragus I’ve made before: a base of onions, garlic, celery and carrot, meat browned separately and with lots of herbs and wine added but somehow, it tasted more like a casserole than a ragu.

Not that it was bad, it was actually really good, it just would have been better with mashed potatoes instead of pasta.

Oxtail Ragu

Oxtail (I had four large pieces)
Salt and Pepper
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 carrots, finely chopped
2 stalks celery, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic
Bay leaf
Herbs (I used thyme and rosemary)
1 tbsp tomato puree
Large glass red wine
Splash worcester sauce

Start by browning the seasoned oxtail. Remove to a plate and blot the excess oil with kitchen paper.

In the same pan, soften the onions, carrot, celery and garlic. Add the herbs and allow to cook for another couple of minutes. Next add the tomato puree and stir so everything is well coated. Return the meat to the pan and add the wine. Allow the wine to bubble and cook for about two minutes or until the alcohol has burnt off.

Finally, add the worcester sauce and season. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and then simmer for three-four hours. Keep an eye on the water level and top up if necessary.

Serve with mashed potatoes

Beef daube is not something I’ve eaten or cooked before so when a friend mentioned she was cooking it this weekend, I started looking at recipes. I was looking for something that would sit happily in the oven all afternoon while we decorated the tree and this was perfect. Like all slow-roast or braised dishes, there’s a little work upfront and then all you need is patience while you wait for the end result (or, in our case, sustenance in the form of mince pies).

I looked at three or four different recipes which varied rather a lot so I just took the parts I liked best from each and combined them. I didn’t have time to let the meat sit in the wine for three days so skipped that but was keen on the combination of red wine and brandy so kept that element. The addition of orange is not something I would have thought of but really helped to cut through the richness of the wine and the brandy and added a festive note too which was fitting.

Olives appeared in all the recipes I read and I would have added them if we had any but I’m glad I didn’t. I can’t imagine how the texture would have worked but I think I would have liked the flavour.

We used ox cheeks because I happened to spot some in Waitrose but the recipes I found online also used beef shin or braising steak. We both really enjoyed this and ended up eating far too much. I’m happy with the combination of flavours we used but felt the orange was just a little too strong and would reduce the zest a little next time.

Ox Cheek Daube
Serves Two, generously

700g beef
Salt and pepper
Flour
Oil
1 large onion, sliced
2 sticks celery, chopped
4 cloves garlic
4 stems thyme
2 bay leaves
1 tsp fennel seeds
4 anchovies
1 tbsp tomato puree
500ml bottle red wine
2 tbsps brandy
300ml beef stock
Zest of one orange, finely chopped
Juice of half an orange

Start by chopping up the beef and tossing in the seasoned flour. Brown the meat in batches and then remove from the pan and blot away the excess oil with some kitchen paper.

In the same pan, add more oil if necessary and then soften the onion, celery and garlic with the thyme, fennel seeds and the bay leaves for about 10 minutes. You want the onions to take on a little colour but not so much that they start to caramelise. Add the anchovies and tomato puree and cook until the anchovies melt.

Return the meat to the pan and then add the wine and the brandy. Let this bubble away until the volume has reduced by half. Now add the beef stock, the orange zest and the juice and bring to the boil. Once everything is boiling, transfer to the oven for three hours.