Winter Beef Recipes To Keep You Warm _ Gordon Ramsay

Beef cheeks. Just think the size of your little cheeks, yeah? Imagine the size of a cow with them. And the cheek is right underneath here, yeah? Mm. I want you to give them a really nice season. Put salt and pepper on there, please. So, beef cheeks, very cheap. A cut that takes sort of a long time to cook. Yeah. But give it a bit of love, let it cook in the oven. It comes out like a dream. A little touch of oil in the pan. What we want to do is get them really nicely coloured. Seared. Seared. Into the pan. Oh, cool. Mm-hm. Lay away. See what that is? Um... Sitting at the dock of the... Beach? Bay! Bay! Beach! And then I want the onion chunky. Yeah. Because we're going to cook it for, like, three, three and a half hours. So you go down, down, down. And then again, there and there. So it doesn't overcook. So, a really good colour on the cheeks, like that. So, how do you cook these at a restaurant if they take so long? They go in the oven literally half-past six, seven o'clock in the morning. Three and a half, four hours, ready for lunch. And the longer you leave them in their juices and the cooking liquor, the better. Three nice cloves of garlic. Good. Onions in and garlic in, please. Nice. Where's your bay leaf? There it is. Good. Get those onions and that garlic really nicely coloured. Put the cheeks back in, please. Right, red wine in. OK, and the red wine is going to deglaze the pan. So deglaze will basically sort of rinse all that flavour off the bottom of the pan. Yeah. OK, because that's going to make the most amazing sauce. Now, you could use tomato puree, but chopped canned tomatoes, they'll make a much better sauce. I'm going to top that with some stock. So, the secret of braising is having little of the meat exposed and 90% of it submerged. See them there? Yeah. They're like little crocodile heads popping up out of the water. Turn the gas off and leave the lid just off at the end there. If we had to cover it completely, the steam hits the top of the lid and all that water comes running back down. Like it's solar still. That's right. In the oven, 140, 150, for about three and a half to four hours. Good job. Boom. For pudding, I'm making one of my absolute favourite Italian desserts, panna cotta, with that quintessentially Italian flavouring, espresso. Start by immersing two leaves of gelatine in cold water and leave to soak. Into a small saucepan, add caster sugar, cream, milk, sugar and a shot of good, strong coffee. Gently bring to a simmer and remove from the hob. Squeeze out the soaked gelatine leaves and stir into the hot cream until completely dissolved. Pour your cream mixture into a jug and fill your moulds just short of the rim. Rinsing your moulds in cold water before filling will make it easier to get your panna cotta out once it's set. Leave in the fridge for at least two to three hours or overnight. To make your cinnamon hazelnut brittle, pour caster sugar into a pan and cook over medium heat until the sugar melts to a deep golden brown. Scatter toasted hazelnuts into the caramel. Dust with ground cinnamon and leave to set at room temperature. When your panna cotta is firm, giving each mould a quick dip into boiling water should ensure a perfect stress-free exit onto the plate. Dressed with a shard of crunchy hazelnut brittle, nothing could be so deliciously elegant. Right, Captain Jack, quick run-through. Panna cottas are nearly set, beef cheeks are nearly cooked. We're going to now do the fig and burrata crostini. Oh. OK? Let's take the figs. We're going to make a nice, slightly spicy fig jam. Take off the tops. Yeah. In half, and each half into three. Sugar. A touch of salt in there. OK, we're making a jam, but we don't want it to be too sweet. And then these little babies. What are they? Ah! What's the shape? Stars. Star anise. Star anise. Taken from the aniseed plant. Yeah. And when you dry them like that, it so intensifies the flavour. Really important to count how many we put in there, OK? Yeah. So, one, two, three, four, five. So they're just there for the flavour, and then you take them out. That's right. The secret here is to get that caramel going. So, when I hear of jam, I don't think of caramel. No, but this is a very fast jam. Caramel's starting to colour. I want you very carefully to drop the figs in there. Good. So, the juice out of the figs is starting to break down the caramel. You know what that is? Old sweet vinegar. I love that on my salad. Got that sort of sweet and sour flavour. Leave that cooking for three or four minutes. Now let's slice our ciabatta. In Italian, crostini means little bits of toast. But it can be made out of leftover baguette, sourdough or any crusty, open-textured bread. We're staying authentically Italian with ciabatta. Season them and then drizzle. A little touch of olive oil on there. Both sides. Really important, because we're going to grill the bread. Push it down. It puts a lovely taste. Very lovely. Take it off. With the ciabatta toasted, we need to carefully extract the star anise pods from our piping hot fig jam. Right, Jack, we've got one little bugger to find. Oh, no. Is it there? Yes, it is. Right. Now we've got the green light to crush. So the skin's disintegrated in that caramel. That looks so nice. While Jack carefully spreads the crostini with our hot fig jam, I can unveil the last element to our starter, the creamy Italian speciality, burrata. Our little money bags. Looking delicious. This looks fun. Doesn't it? We need to season them lightly, drizzle over a little olive oil and dust them with lemon zest. Can you imagine that sat there? You tear some of that off and you stick it on top of that. Mmm! Mmm! Mmm! Back to the main course. To match our hearty beef cheeks, I've chosen to use pappardelle. Rule number one when cooking pasta? Salt in first. Salt in first, good. Olive oil in. Pasta in. Twist it round so you don't break it. Nice. Bring that back up to the boil. That's going to take about three or four minutes. Flat leaf parsley. Scrunch it up for me? Yep. And chop it. Now, wait till you see these beef cheeks. Beauties. Look at them. They're really soft. They're really soft. Oh, they're tiny. I want you to taste. Mmm. It's so good. Oh, Jack, you've just dribbled on your jumper. Joke it. Seriously? Really? Right, drain the pasta. Salt, pepper. Pasta. A little drizzle of olive oil. I'm going to put your fresh parsley. Nicely chopped. In. This is the magic bit, OK? You take a little ladle of the juice, put that at the bottom, and you put the pasta on top of that sauce. Ooh. Honestly. Oh, my gosh. Your sisters are going to love you even more now, you know that? What about when you cook this for your girlfriend one day? Er... Just tell her where you got the recipe from, will you? Promise? Promise. I don't want you stealing Daddy's thunder. One. Beautiful jaw on there. Two. Beautiful jaws on there. Mmm. And then the third jaw. And then you go over with the sauce. How cool is that? Delicious. You've got the burrata and I've got the cheese. Mmm. Let's go, please. Oh, stop it. Don't be cheeky. Get it? No! My ultimate Italian dinner. Quick-fit jam crostini with creamy burrata. A main course of slow-cooked beef cheek ragu with pappardelle. And for pudding, espresso panna cotta with cinnamon hazelnut brittle. A stunning meal to bring the whole family together in the best Italian tradition. First things first, I'd like you to season the stew instead. A nice spoon of flour. Mix? Yeah. Good girl. What's the flour going to do, Dad? The flour helps to brown the beef. Our seasoned flour will also help to add flavour and thicken the stew. I feel a bit like marshmallows. They do feel a bit like marshmallows, don't they? Look at the size of the chunks of the beef. I'm going to cut my carrots, literally. So it'd be similar. Similar size, that's right. Does that mean they'll cook equally? That's right. Now, these are little pearl onions. I'm going to put them in whole as well. Everything has to stay the same, otherwise it could burn. Oh, we've seen burned garlic before. Oh, Matilda. She promised you weren't going to mention that. What is that? Thyme. Thyme. And what are they? Bay leaves. Bay leaves, good girl. A tablespoon of oil in. The beef goes in first, OK? In. It's got a really nice colour. It's got a beautiful colour. In with the carrots, thyme in. Good girl. Garlic, pearl onions in. Ooh. Good. Give that a really good mix up. Are stews easy to make, Daddy? Stews are very easy to make, providing, at the beginning, you give it a little bit of love. Now that's all beautifully browned. Mmm. Is that beer? That is beer. And that's going to deglaze the pan. Adding beer or stout helps to tenderise the beef and give it a hearty, delicious flavour. And that's the only way I want you to taste beer. In a stew. Yeah? Mmm. I want you to add in a couple of teaspoons of tomato puree, please. In fact, three, please. Cos it's so nice. And there's one final thing in there. Cover the stew and steak with the beef stock. Give that a little mix with Daddy, please. Wow, that's really nice. It's not even cooked yet. Do you keep all these vegetables in when you serve it to people? Oh, yes. Is the garlic going to be burnt? Excuse me? Right. We always put the lid with a little bit... Just a little bit, so it can breathe. That's right. Not make the stew all watery. Into the oven at 150, please, Tills, for about two and a half hours. And now, you can focus on your homework. Time to knock up two delicious hearty potato classics in one. Twice-baked bubble and squeak jacket potatoes. Start by baking large potatoes in a preheated oven at 180 degrees. Shred one-third of your savoy cabbage and sauté in butter and add a dash of water until tender. After about half an hour, your potatoes should be crisp on the outside and cooked through in the middle. Slice them in half and scoop out the soft potato centre. Then mash with a couple of knobs of butter, mix in the cabbage and season to taste. Spoon this mixture back into your potato shells and into the oven for a further ten minutes, or until the tops are nice and crispy and golden. Two delicious hearty potato classics in one. Twice-baked bubble and squeak jacket potatoes. Right, homework done? Yeah. Beef stew is stewing. Stewing. Let's get on with our delicious hearty pear tart. I've been looking forward to this. You and I, chef, are going to prep the pears. So, if you peel, I'll top and tail into quarters. Pears go soft in the oven very, very quickly. So, if we're going to put them on a tart, we'll either leave them whole, half or in quarter. What's that in there? Ginger. That's right. That's stem ginger. So, we're going to use stem ginger and fresh ginger. Next, add your stem ginger, add a little of the stem ginger syrup... Good girl. ..and some brown sugar to your quartered pears. And then just grate some fresh ginger. Off you go. So, it's a bit of a different one to grate this, because it doesn't really come through like the cheese. No. Going to make that a little bit zesty. Now we've got some lemon zest. Some lemon zest in there. Right, what I want you to do now is give that a nice little mix. Now, this is a sweet pastry. You can buy this stuff or you can make it. It's so easy to do. So, give me your finger. That's my centre point. I want you to get the pears going round like that, in a really nice circle. It's difficult, isn't it, because the pears keep on sliding all over the place. Yeah. We've got an egg wash on the outside and I'm going to show you a little trick. So, you lift that up. So, is the egg wash acting like a bit of a glue? That's right. Crimple this with our finger. And the pastry forms this nice little shelf, like a little money bag. Are you going to do anything with the spare pears? Oh, yeah. You start building that up, then, you see? Put the fresh ginger and those nice little bits of stem ginger. Let me go round my egg. With your glue. We want it to glow just on top. Philly's last job is to give our tart a good dusting of icing sugar. So, that caramelises it and colours the pears beautifully. It's a bit like snow. Isn't it? Now, that glazes the pastry, so the pastry has this really nice shine on there as well. Finally, the lemon on top. Put that there. 180. And in she goes. Can you smell the beef? It smells delicious. Wow, it's even gone down a bit more, hasn't it? Look at that. I want you to just... I was hoping you'd ask. Just have a little taste. Mmm. How's that taste now? Mmm. You're not allowed any more. HE CHUCKLES Right. Dumpling time. Flour in, please. I'm using self-raising flour for a fluffier result. But if you like your dumplings hard, use plain flour. Next, the dumpling essential, suet. That makes the dumplings nice and moist. Thank you. Followed by a generous dollop of grain mustard. Two fingers. Start rolling the fingers round. I've got a touch of warm water here. Your fingers are now a nice little whisk. My fingers are getting tired. Right. Now put your hand in there. Now you should bring all that dough together. I'll show you the best way to get that nice and clean. Sprinkles of flour on your hands. Rub them together. All that will come off. That's a good way. Isn't it? Now, we've got this wonderful dumpling mixture. How squidgy's that? Mmm. A little flour on your hands. OK. Roll these lengthways. And then I want you to roll them like that in your hand. Off you go. Smell that mustard in there? Huh? Smell. Oh! Come on. I'd never trust you with something like that, should I? Do you want to smell it? Yes, please. No. Tilly. Gently. Let's go in. At 12 o'clock. 1 o'clock. 12 in the centre. I'm going to put that back into the oven for 20 minutes to cook the dumplings. Now, if you open the door for Daddy, I'm going to take out that tart. Ooh, it smells so nice. Doesn't it? Our pear tart has had 35 minutes in the oven. Look at that, baby. That looks good. Mmm. Would you like me to start dusting? Yes, please. Nice and gently, all the way round. Good girl. Little taps. The others are going to love this. It looks a bit like a snowy cake. Doesn't it? Good job. Now, very carefully, carry that to the table. How nice does that look? Delish. OK, I'll check on the dumplings. Now, look. They've sort of doubled in size. Whoa, definitely. A final sprinkling of chopped parsley and our stew is ready for the table. I might have to have a quick taste before we go. Just to check. I mean, we do have to be sure. We have to be very sure. Mmm. That is an amazing, hearty beef stew with dumplings. Right, the twice-baked loaded potatoes. And we are ready. This is my ultimate hearty dinner. A comforting rich beef stew with mustard dumplings and twice-baked bubble and squeak jacket potatoes. And to make sure your sweet tooth is completely satisfied, a rich and zingy pear and ginger galette.