fri27jul2012: bouef à la tisonnais

cook-a-cow, continued 

this week's cut: shoulder

#16: shoulder (aka chuck) Cuts taken from the large muscle system of the shoulder & neck of beef are known as chuck steak. The chuck section yields some of the most flavorsome and economical cuts of meat.  The downside is that these cuts tend to be tough and fatty, and they can have more than their fair share of bone and gristle.  Best results from slow cooking, moist heat as with a pot roast or braising in a liquid.

In a small corner of Brittany, this dish is served through the long dry summer months, cooked outdoors on an open fire. Stopping for a time with Nico & Johnno, an old friend & his business partner, at Johnno's place near St Maden in Brittany, northern France, the chance to recreate some of the local dishes was too good to let pass.

Johnno's is a Grand Design project. Sitting typing on the porch, surrounded by red roses violets & marigolds, I'm finding it hard to find words to capture the beauty of this place. In a courtyard surrounded by crumbling stone & mud walls, looking through an entrance way the date 1771 etched in granite, a medieval landscape stretches out before me. Butterflies dancing in the wind over crops of cauliflower & cabbages & corn, fields of wheat & grass cut for hay, dairy paddocks of grazing jersey cows, all  making up a patchwork framed by orchards of plum trees & great oaks which line the small roads that wind their way through the countryside, a blue sky & a hot sun, shades of grey dispersing in the distant haze of summer...it is French countryside as I have always imagined French countryside to be.

On a recently constructed fire pit in the courtyard, we built our fire using old oak beams discarded from the ruins, collecting coals for the tagine Nico brought back from Morocco & which he has travelled with ever since. Over three years of renovating, Johnno tells me the joys of cooking outodoors in this way more than made up for having no kitchen. What a wonderful thing to do, sitting round the fire as the sun sets, eating good food & drinking wine in the company of friends. This dish reflects that rustic living.

Ingredients: Bouef à la Tisonnais

shoulder of beef, diced -we used roughly a kilo

onions&garlic -3or4 cloves, a cpl of onions

carrots/mushrooms/leeks chopped -a good handful of each

olive oil/cider/cider vinegar/thyme/terre de sel (sea salt)/black pepper - enough to marinate

tomato paste - a small tin should do it

(i've added soy sauce & fresh ginger)

saucisson breton (dried sausage, peppery) cut into good slices

fresh toulouse sausages (pork&nutmeg) also sliced

Method:

*marinate the beef in a little oil/vinegar/crushed garlic/s'n'p (+sliced ginger & splash of soy)

*heat the pan/pot/tagine you want you use for this dish & drain the meat (keeping the marinade) & drop in the cubed beef piece by piece to brown each side, in batches if necessary

*when browned, remove & set aside & repeat the process with the chunks/slices of toulouse & saucisse breton

*add the chopped veg, stirring then putting the lid on to get things happening for 10 minutes or so.

*add the beef & sausage to the veg, then spoon in the tomato paste & stir it all about

* next add a little of the marinade & some more cider - roughly a couple of cups of liquid all up

*put the cover on your dish, bring to simmering point, & walk away

*the dish will be ready when the meat is tender, in this case it took about 4 hours, in the tagine.

*the liquid can be reduced at this point if desired, or not

*we cooked a little couscous, mixed it with parsley & lemon zest, & stirred it through the stew to soak up a little juice.

One of the things to note about cooking meat like this is that unless given the time to soften, ie with liquid over the period of a few hours on a gentle heat, the tough fibres & connective tissue will mean this meat remains tough & stringy & really not that great to eat. For us, cooking with an open fire, the charcoals had to be topped up repeatedly to keep a consistently moderate heat, hot enough to get things bubbling but not too hot, since we didnt want to incinerate the tagine incase it cracked. Tasting the beef along the way, it's amazing how quickly it transforms, once ready, from chewy & tough to soft & tender & really tasty.

As a final note, while we had enough to feed four hungry blokes, there were left overs. Keep these, especially the sauce. The meat - well, whatever: munchies material for midnight fridge raids, bubble & squeak for brekky, in a sammy for lunch the next day...it's all good. The sauce, however, rich & spicy, meaty & thick, is a keeper. I kept what was left & used it as the foundation for the next night's dish... coming soon to the fridaynightdinnerbox...