Comfort food recipe for 4 people, takes only 20 mins; recipe has vegetable oil, beef shin, pearl onions, carrot, celery stick, plain flour, chicken stock, guinness, thyme sprig, star anise, buttered cabbage, smoked bacon, oil, thyme leaves, self-raising flour, beef suet, egg yolk and parsley.
Beef & Guinness stew with bacon dumplings
Course: Comfort food
Servings
4
servings
Prep time
30 mins
Ingredients
- Vegetable Oil: 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- Carrot: 4 medium carrots, chopped to the same size as the shallots
- Parsley: small pack parsley, leaves picked and finely chopped
- Oil: 1/2 tbsp oil
- Celery Stick: 3 celery sticks, cut into bite-sized chunks
- Chicken Stock: 500ml beef or chicken stock
- Plain Flour: 3 tbsp plain flour
- Self Raising Flour: 125g self-raising flour
- Egg Yolk: 1 egg yolk
- Thyme Sprig: 1 large thyme sprig
- Thyme Leaves: 1 tsp thyme leaves
- Star Anise: 4 star anise
- Guinness: 500ml Guinness
- Smoked Bacon: 100g smoked bacon, finely minced
- Beef Shin: 1kg boneless beef shin, cut into 3cm chunks
- Pearl Onions: 200g pearl onions or small shallots
- Buttered Cabbage: buttered cabbage and mash, to serve
- Beef Suet: 60g beef suet
Directions
- First, make the dumplings. Gently fry the bacon until crisp in a large lidded casserole dish. Stir in the thyme leaves, then tip into a bowl and leave to cool slightly. Add the flour and suet to the bacon, and stir everything together. Make a well in the middle, then add the egg yolk, parsley, 1/2 tsp pepper and 2 tbsp very cold water, and start to mix into a dough. Keep adding water until you a have a firm but pliable dough. Divide the mixture into eight balls and chill until needed.
- Heat oven to 160C/140C fan/gas 3. Quickly clean the casserole dish with some kitchen paper, then heat the oil. Brown the meat really well in batches, then set aside. Tip in the onions or shallots, carrots and celery, brown well, then stir in the flour. Add the meat and any juices back into the dish, give everything a good stir, then pour in the stock and Guinness. Season, then tuck in the thyme and star anise and bring everything to a simmer. Cover with a lid, then cook in the oven for about 2 hrs until the meat is tender.
- Remove the stew from the oven and arrange the dumplings evenly on top. Put the lid back on and return to the oven for 20 mins, then cook for a final 10 mins with the lid off to brown the dumplings. Bring the dish to the table in all its glory. Spoon into bowls with cabbage and mash, to serve.
