Beef and orange squash stew.
So we start by browning for six portions
about three pounds of meaty chuck.
Well trimmed chuck and I dredge it
in just a little bit of flour, season it liberally,
generously with salt and pepper
right before you start to brown it
and brown it in a little olive oil
over medium to medium high heat.
Then we take that out and you leave the dripping.
See all those.
That's the best part.
Right.
Crispy bits.
Right.
To that, we're gonna add a little slab of butter,
a couple of tablespoons,
and we're going to add in a couple of onions.
I have a bundle of sage in rosemary.
Also add a little bit of orange flavor
with a curl of orange peel.
We're gonna throw in a couple of bay leaves.
John's gonna make some crushed garlic.
We throw in a very short piece like about an inch,
inch and a half of cinnamon stick.
We're gonna throw in a few juniper berries
the crushed garlic, and then the squash.
So by the time we remove all of the peel and the seeds,
you're looking for about the same weight as the beef.
So if we had two and a half pounds of beef,
we want two and a half pounds of squash.
You have three pounds of beef,
you want about the same.
You can use pumpkin too, right?
Of course you can use pumpkins.
And to pick up the drippings from the bottom of the pot,
we're gonna add a little bit of dry white wine
or Italian white.
If you don't wanna use the wine, that's fine.
You can just add your stock a little earlier
and we're gonna just let that cook down just a hair
and we're gonna slide the beef back in.
This was the three pounds of chuck.
You're a beef slider.
So we're going to just kind of nest the beef in there.
Now you can slow cook this over very low heat
on the stove top for a few hours.
I think it's easier to just throw it in the oven.
Very low about 325 for a few hours.
And it depends on how large
or small you cut the chuck cubes.
For me, it's about two hours is a good sweet spot for this.
You wanna wait till the meat is nice and tender
and we need to add some liquid to the pot.
So you have lots of choices here.
Chicken broth, fine.
Chicken stock, fine.
Bone broth, very trendy, very popular.
I happen to love bone broth.
I'm going to add some beef bone broth
and you want just enough to come up
to kind of the top of the beef.
So now we're gonna just let that come to a bubble
and we'll pop the lid on
and as soon as it bubbles, I'm gonna pop it into the oven.
Honey, can you hear me the raw polenta?
There you go.
So this is polenta that has an unusual quality to it.
It's polenta that's mixed with buckwheat.
You can order it online.
Any polenta, including quick cooking is fine.
You can make quick cooking polenta
in literally three minutes, it will mask for you.
It'll be done.
Okay.
Most polentas, if you're cooking a slow cooking polenta
will be 40 to 60 minutes.
Some people prefer to cook their polenta in the oven.
I do not.
I prefer to cook it on the stove top.
I like to keep my eye on things.
Polenta is grits, right?
Basically.
It kind of, yeah.
kind of.
Sort of.
Sort of kind.
Yeah, I mean ground corn, sure.
Well, this one has buckwheat too.
You put in a slab of butter at the end.
Hand me the cheese, sweetheart.
Thank you babe.
When it starts to get thick,
but still pourable like this, okay,
thick but still pourable at the end
towards the end of the cooking process,
we stir in a few tablespoons of butter
and we add parmigiano or pecorino cheese.
You can mix them together, it doesn't matter.
That's how we finish this.
Now, we're just gonna keep that warm.
This batch of stew is out of the oven
and I just took the lid off
and I'm letting it thicken up just to hair.
Of course, we pull out the cinnamon stick, the aromatics,
you know, the little bundle of rosemary and sage
your bay leaves, and a little piece of orange.
We pull that all out.
But it's best if you just serve it
right from the giant bubbling pot.
Everybody just loves that and they come a running.
(crowd applauds)
(crowd cheers)