Cookbook:Beef and Guinness Casserole

Here is a recipe for a fantastic beef and Guinness casserole. You can find many variations of this by searching the internet, but I found many of them lacking so I experimented and experimented. Finally it started tasting deep and rich. Serves four (or three if you're my family---they can't get enough!).

Casserole

 * 1 kg (2.5 lbs) of round beef
 * 4–5 medium onions
 * 4–5 stalks of celery
 * 4–5 medium carrots
 * 1 bottle (500 ml) Guinness or other stout
 * 500 ml (16 oz) of tomato sauce (can use canned chopped tomato, but for a richer sauce use bottles of tomato sauce. Do NOT use ketchup!)
 * 1 small handful of fresh thyme
 * 2 cloves of garlic, crushed and sliced thin
 * 2 bay leaves
 * ¼ cup of plain flour
 * 2 tablespoons of peppercorns (can add more to taste)
 * 1 teaspoon of salt
 * Approximately 1 litre (1 quart) of stock
 * Olive oil

Champ

 * 1 bunch of spring onion
 * Starchy white potatoes (enough for 4 people)
 * Butter
 * Milk

Procedure

 * 1) Trim the meat of excess fat, and cut into 1-inch pieces.
 * 2) Cut your vegetables into small, similarly sized pieces. Keep the carrots big enough (about ½-inch cuts), and none so big as you wouldn't want to find it later and think "that's a bloody big bit of carrot".
 * 3) Freshly grind your pepper to a fine powder in a pestle and mortar. Take your time with this. Then add a teaspoon of salt, and set half of this aside for your champ potato. Then add the other half to the ¼ cup of flour and mix well to get seasoned flour. Then mix this in a big bowl with your beef.
 * 4) Heat your frying pan over medium-high heat. Add a good lug of olive oil, then add your coated beef (discard the excess coating, which shouldn't be much). You need enough oil so that the coating isn't dry on the beef. You then want to brown the beef—keep it moving so it doesn't burn. What you're doing is sealing the meat so it's tender and undergoing the Mailliard reaction, which give fantastic flavour. Brown in batches if pan is not very large. Put to one side.
 * 5) Add another small glug of olive oil to the pan. Add the onion and turn to medium-low heat. Cook for a few minutes, add celery and garlic, and continue to cook until they all soften and the onion has started going golden. Add the carrot and continue for another few minutes.
 * 6) Now get a big oven-proof casserole dish, and add your stock, cooked vegetables, beef, Guinness, tomato, bay leaves and thyme. Bring to boil on a hob, put on the lid, and put into a preheated oven at 150°C (300°F) convection. Check every 40 minutes to 1 hour, and give a good stir. This takes 3 hours to cook properly. All the protein that makes round beef tough comes out into your sauce to make it thick and rich and your beef juicy and tender. If you did the browning part right, the beef should be succulent and bursting with flavour—if not then it is dry and boring.
 * 7) About 40 minutes before the casserole is done, boil the potatoes until soft. Drain, and allow to steam until dry. Mash thoroughly and add pepper/salt combo (salt to taste), butter, and a little milk—its amazing how little milk will turn your potato to sludge, so be careful. Once all this is mashed well, stir in your spring onion.
 * 8) Serve in deep bowls. Put a layer of champ at the bottom, ladle your beef and Guinness on the top, serve, and enjoy.