Recipes

Slow-Cooked Beef Stew With Prunes And Apples

Daisy Nichols|

Slow-Cooked Beef Stew With Prunes And Apples
4 (3 ratings)
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This is the queen of Dalmatian dishes. It takes a long time to prepare — at least one day marinating in good red wine or prošek (Dalmatian fortified wine) and vegetables, and a good 3–4 hours’ braising the next day. It’s often served with potato dumplings or handmade pasta. In Dalmatia, pašticada is usually cooked for big celebrations. It’s an essential dish for weddings, christenings, or other equally important days. In Dalmatia you are considered a great cook if you can make this dish, and my grandmother Tomica was a pašticada expert. Don’t be frightened by this, though — it’s not that hard; it just takes a little time. But don’t forget the most important ingredient: love. — Ino Kuvačić, author of Dalmatia
Servings
10
Ingredients
  • 5 1/2 pound beef cheeks
  • 4 cup red wine
  • 1 3/4 fluid ounces red wine vinegar
  • 2 onions, sliced 1/8 inch thick
  • 2 carrots, sliced 1/8 inch thick
  • 2 celery stalks, sliced 1/8 inch thick
  • 3 cloves
  • 1/2 cinnamon stick
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 7 fluid ounces extra-virgin olive oil
  • 3 1/2 ounce prosciutto, chopped
  • 3 garlic cloves, chopped
  • 15 ounce tomatoes, cut into chunks
  • 12 cup beef stock
  • 2 apples, peeled, cored and cut into wedges
  • 7 ounce tinned pitted prunes, cut into 3/4- to 1 1/4-inch dice
  • 1 teaspoon dijon mustard
  • 1 teaspoon prune jam
  • sea salt
  • freshly ground black pepper
Directions
  1. Marinate the beef overnight in the red wine, vinegar, onion, carrot, celery, cloves, cinnamon and bay leaves.
  2. The next day, take the beef out of the marinade, separating the vegetables and reserving the liquid.
  3. Seal the cheeks in a frying pan in the olive oil over high heat for 2–3 minutes.
  4. Remove the beef from the pan and deglaze the pan with the liquid from the marinade.
  5. In a saucepan over high heat, sauté the chopped prosciutto and, when crispy, the chopped garlic.
  6. Add all the marinated vegetables and spices and sauté for 20–25 minutes.
  7. When the vegetables are cooked, add the tomato and sauté for a further 5 minutes.
  8. Add the sealed beef cheeks, the liquid you used to deglaze the pan and the beef stock.
  9. Braise for 1 1/2 hours.
  10. Add the peeled apples and pitted prunes and cook for a further hour or until the cheeks are cooked — you should be able to push your finger through the cheek but it should still have some resistance.
  11. When the beef cheeks are cooked, remove the beef, cinnamon stick and bay leaves from the braising liquid and set aside.
  12. Skim the scum from the top of the liquid, then blend it with a hand-held blender until smooth.
  13. Adjust the flavour by adding the mustard and prune jam — the flavor should be sweet and sour.
  14. Divide the beef cheeks among serving plates and pour the sauce over to serve.
  15. Recipe excerpted with permission from Dalmatia by Ino Kuvačić (Hardie Grant Books, May 2017)
 
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