Mediterranean Steak

The last twenty-one days had seen things seesaw, personally, professionally and socially. Through all that  I'd fitted a lot of wonderful stuff in with great people, avoided being overwhelmed by the extreme heatwave and ridden the tide on a few other things that might have gotten the better of me a few years earlier.

Bank Holiday Sunday morning started with my phone beeping and slightly dazed I wandered out a walk with one of my oldest and best mates and our dogs. After enjoying that I headed home with a clearer head and a plan or two to keep ticking over.

As it was the Bank Holiday I had bought in some special meat to cook as my main weekend meal. I don't have loads of meat in my diet and, as those of you who read this blog regularly will know, my main meals are largely vegetarian and fish dishes. However I still think you can do some great meat dishes as a change from vegetarian food or fish.

I decided that to go with the Mediterranean Weather I'd make a Mediterranean dish in the form of a beef stew with pasta.

On the player was Neil Young's first class compilation "Decade". It is that rare "best of" compilation by a major artist that functions as a great album in its own right. It is chock full of classics and non-album rarities that span the first ten years of Young's solo career and membership of various bands. Musically it spans acoustic folk, hard rock, rock 'n' roll and some country music. Its wild range of styles perfectly mirrored the wide range of emotions I'd experienced in the previous three weeks. It was therefore a very appropriate choice of music.

When I need to get my head together I cook a big dish. So on this day I took a packet of beef chunks and fried them on a low heat in Rapeseed Oil in my Le Cresceut Dish for twenty minutes. I made sure that all sides of the chunks were slightly browned at least. I also put a couple of tablespoons each of Basil, Black Pepper and Oregano in with the Beef when it was fried.

After that I added two Carrots that I'd peeled, topped and tailed and then cut into batons. Also added at this time was a thinly sliced Garlic Clove, half a diced Onion, and three Tomatoes I'd quartered. I shallow fried these for around ten minutes.

After this I added half a bottle of Red Wine that had come to me from a grateful client. The other half was to be drunk steadily later that evening to help to unwind and rationalise a few recent events.

After simmering the food for another half an hour I added half a pint of vegetable stock and let the ingredients simmer, without allowing them to boil over, for another three hours.

In the last ten minutes of the cooking I boiled up some Tagliatelle and served it with the stew. It was still muggy in the house and outside too but when eaten with a glass of red wine the meal served to revitalise me considerably. The wine in the stew gave it a rich taste while the addition of the Tagliatelle helped me feel like I was in a warm part of Southern Italy.

Shadowy Beef: the stew sits on top of the Tagliatelle.