Beef Casserole with Olives
Beef slow-cooked with black olives and tomato; better the next day.
- Time
- 150 minutes
- Serves
- 4
- Level
- Medium
- Cuisine
- Mediterranean
Long cooking turns cheap meat into expensive meat. Stewing beef is full of connective tissue; over two hours on a low heat the collagen in it converts to gelatine, giving the sauce both body and a texture that coats the mouth. This is why choosing a "more tender" cut for this recipe would be a mistake — lean, sinew-free meat simply dries out in two hours.
The olives are not only flavour here but a balancing ingredient: long-simmered tomato and paste turn sweet, and the salt and slight bitterness of the olives cut through that sweetness.
Directions
- Pat the beef dry and sear it in the olive oil in batches, without crowding the pan.
- Lift the meat out; in the same oil soften the onion, garlic and carrot for 6-7 minutes.
- Add the tomato paste and cook for a minute to lose its raw edge.
- Return the meat with the tomatoes, bay leaf and thyme, then add the hot water.
- Cover and cook over low heat for 2 hours, until the beef falls apart at a fork.
- Add the olives and cook a further 10 minutes.
- Rested overnight, the flavour comes together noticeably.
Tips & storage
Salt at the end; the olives and the paste raise it together. A stew salted at the start cannot be corrected two hours later.
Don't crowd the pot when searing. Too much meat drops the temperature, the meat releases its juices and boils instead of browning. Work in batches, leaving space between the pieces.
Always fry off the tomato paste. A minute's cooking removes the raw taste; skip it and a metallic note lingers in the finished stew.
Add the olives in the last ten minutes. Simmered for two hours they surrender all their salt to the sauce and turn bland and rubbery themselves.
Rest it overnight. This stew is markedly better the next day — the gelatine sets as it cools and the flavours settle. Reheat gently.
Tight lid, low heat. A bare tremble, not a boil. Over high heat the meat shreds but stays dry.
Storage. Three days in the fridge, two months in the freezer. It holds its consistency after thawing.
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