Slow Cooked Beef & Red Wine Ragout

Slow Cooked Beef & Red Wine Ragout 


PREPARATION: 15 MINUTES 
COOKING: 2 HOURS 
SERVES: 6 - 8 

 A couple of weeks ago when I went to the supermarket to get the cream cheese for the 

New York Cheesecake & I got a nice freebie! If you bought 3 Philadelphia cream cheese products you got this really nice cookbook Simply Heaven for free :) so even though I only needed 2 blocks I bought 3 ha ha and I think a different supermarket chain has the same promotion next week so I might go buy more and get a book each for my girlie's Amy & Sarah. 

Ingredients 


1/4 cup oil 
1kg pickling onions, peeled and halved (have tissues ready I cried like a tap!) 
1kg chuck steak or gravy beef, cut into chunks 
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1/3 cup tomato paste
2 cups beef stock
2 cups red wine (1 for the ragout 1 for me to drink!! make sure you only add 1 cup to the ragout!!!) 
125g Philadelphia block light cream cheese
Salt and Pepper to taste 


Cooked Pasta to serve 

Method 

Heat half the oil in  a large heavy based saucepan and cook the onions until browned. Set aside. Heat remaining oil and brown beef in batches. Set aside.

Add garlic and tomato paste and gently cook for 1 minute. Return beef to saucepan, add stock and wine and bring to the boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally. Add onions and cook a further 20 minutes. 

Whisk together the philly cheese with some of the cooking liquid until smooth, add to the saucepan and simmer a further 10 minutes. Spoon onto serving plates with pasta. Serve immediately. 

 

My Notes 


This turned out to be a bit of a Ho Hum dish, it is OK as a bit of a mid week stick it together meal, but it lacked depth of flavour and had WAY too many onions!