Skip to main content

The way to a man's heart is through his stomach

The way to man's heart is through his stomach, so the saying goes and I often express my love through preparing delicious meals for my loved ones. 

For Valentine's Day, why not prepare one of the simplest dishes I learnt last year during the lockdown? It's beef short ribs cooked in the oven for five hours. The preparation is simple but it yields one of the most delicious meals. It's from a book by the French chef Stephane Reynaud. 

Everything is cooked in one pan, so this recipe is also kind to whoever has to do the washing up. Well, you may have other things in mind after this dinner.

The ingredient list is also short:

1.2 kg beef short ribs for 4 people

4 red onions, quartered and included in its skin, or peeled and chopped roughly

8 new potatoes, or King Edwards also fine

3 tablespoons of tomato puree

1 tablespoon honey (or maple syrup)

3 tablespoons soy sauce

80g butter

Pepper


Preheat the oven to 120 degrees Celcius.

Peel and chop the onions and clean the potatoes. Mix the tomato sauce, honey and soy sauce in a small bowl. Take a flameproof casserole dish, melt the butter and brown the ribs all around. Cover the ribs with the sauce and arrange the onions and potatoes around the ribs. Cover and cook in the oven for 5 hours. Check halfway through and add a little water if the ribs stick to the pan. 

You can also add chunks of parsnips and carrots to the mix. They will hold their shape and will be a delicious addition to the dish. 

If you prefer, you can exclude the potatoes from the casserole and serve this dish with some mashed potatoes that can absorb the delicious juice.

Bon appetite!









Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Delicious thinly sliced pork in Korean marinade

Sometimes you found a recipe and wrote it down on a piece of paper to try it out. Having done that, you forget where the recipe came from. Likewise this Korean recipe for pork, which turned out to be so delicious we have cooked it for everyone. The marinade is simple to make and yet really packed with flavours. For the Korean marinade you need  3 garlic cloves 1/2 brown onion 1/2 a pear or apple Blitz these ingredients together and then add 5 tablespoons soy sauce (I use Kikkoman) 3 tablespoons caster sugar 2 tablespoons sesame oil 3 tablespoons mirin black pepper For dinner for 2 people, 200g pork tenderloin is enough. Slice this thinly, and bash it to an even thinner piece with a meat mallet. Marinade in the sauce and leave it in the fridge for an hour. Then heat a frying pan on medium heat with a teaspoon of vegetable oil and fry the thin pork pieces until browned. You want some of the edges of the meat to be dark brown and caramelised, if you can. Don't cook too many pieces or ...

‘Southsea dinosaur’ returns

Luna Park 2021, an eagerly anticipated new public artwork for Portsmouth designed by internationally renowned artists Ivan Morison and Heather Peak of Studio Morison will be launched on 2 October 2021 on a celebratory day in Southsea Common.  The 1.4 metres bronze sculpture is a tribute to the original 53-foot high 2010 artwork Luna Park, which tragically burned down on Southsea Common. The artists will unveil a new sculpture that responds to ten years of public demand to ‘bring back the Southsea Dinosaur’.  The new public artwork will be located within a direct sightline to the position of the original Luna Park sculpture. It will sit on top of a fossil Portland stone plinth with a QR code which when scanned with a smartphone will connect to an Augmented Reality experience. People will be transported to a digital rendering of the original artwork, seemingly standing life-size in front of them on Southsea Common. Viewers will also be able to use their mobile devices to visit a...

Indonesian fried spring rolls (Lumpia Goreng)

I don't often make Indonesian food because the ingredients are hard to find, but our local supermarkets are getting better at stocking ethnic ingredients. In the frozen section of Tesco, near the samosas, you can find the spring roll pastry.  Don't bother asking the branch in Chester. I was laughed at by the cashier when I asked for spring roll skin, because 'skin' is what we call the wrapper in Indonesian. Her more helpful colleague offered me filo pastry instead, which can be a good substitute. I'm afraid no one in Chester has yet to taste my amazing spring rolls as a result. Friends in Southsea are luckier!  Here are the ingredients to make 30 spring rolls (the packs come in 30 or 40 pieces) 1 medium head of cabbage, thinly sliced 2 carrots, julienned 1 red or yellow pepper, julienned 1 medium onion, thinly sliced 1 medium courgette, julienned 1 tablespoon of Oyster sauce (omit if cooking for vegan) 2 tbsp soy sauce salt and pepper to taste 1 tbsp vegetable oil f...