Donna Hay says meat is hard to photograph - and she is right, but this is delicious!
Over the long weekend, Mr M and I headed to Lorne. As is generally the case, we spent the majority of the weekend cooking and drinking red wine. There was a bit of a cold snap so we also had our first open fire of the year, nice.
We invited our friends A & M over for dinner and planned to make something warm and comforting – lamb shanks. However, we got to the store and I was swayed by a lovely piece of grass fed, angus beef blade, from a local farm.
Beef blade in hand, we got it back to our house to realise we had no idea how to cook the thing! A trawl of the interwebs largely recommended roasting it, but that the cut can be tough and needs to be looked after.
We found a recipe from Chef David Everitt-Matthias from Le Champignon Sauvage. He recommended braising the blade for around 5 hours, cooling it overnight then slicing it, frying it and finally, finishing it off in the oven, coated in the sauce. This sounded fine, except for the overnight part, since we had guests coming that evening. We decided to follow his recipe for braising the beef and served it as is, with the jus on the side.
The meat was absolutely delicious and as you can see from the photos, meltingly tender (it could be cut with a spoon). We served it with some buttered brussel sprouts and boiled potatoes on the side. Yum.
Braised blade of beef
1.5 – 2kg blade of beef
75ml olive oil
25g unsalted butter
1 carrot, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 leek, cut into 4
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 small can of stout
2 sprigs of thyme
1 bay leaf
1 litre beef stock
- Cover with a lid, transfer to the oven and cook for 4.5 – 5 hours, until the meat is incredibly tender.
- Remove the beef from the liquid and wrap in aluminium foil to keep it warm, set aside.
- Strain the sauce, retaining the liquid and discarding the vegetables and herbs.
- Simmer the remaining sauce until reduced to the desired consistency, then check the seasoning.
- Serve with jus on the side, boiled vegetables and a glass of red or three.
