Braised Beef with Onions and Carrots – Slow-Cooked Chuck Recipe

Step-by-step recipe

1. In our house, beef braised with onions and carrots is traditionally a weekend dish, for when there is time and nowhere to rush. Buy meat without bones or visible pieces of fat – chuck from the shoulder is best. Don't buy veal, it is too tender. Then again, if you do, you can simply shorten the cooking time. Buy small onions, the size of a hen's egg or even smaller, so that you don't have to cut them. And the carrots are better large. By the way, the amount of onion and carrot in the dish is up to you – I would use even more if I could eat that much.
   
2. Wash the meat and pat it dry with paper towels. If there are any membranes, visible pieces of fat or bits of bone, trim them off. Cut the beef into large pieces of 35-40 grams each. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan (you can use sunflower oil if you like). When the oil is properly hot and starts to crackle, put in all the pieces of meat and fry over high heat until a crust forms. Then turn the pieces over and brown the other side. After that, move the meat to a plate for the time being.
   
3. Peel the onions. Don't use large ones – they may not cook through in the middle even after a long time, and that will affect the taste of the whole dish. The onions should go in whole – that is how it is done in Greece for stifado, though there they usually use very small onions. Peel the carrots and cut them very coarsely – literally to match the size of the onions. Fry the onions and carrots in the pan, in the oil left from the meat, until lightly browned.
   
4. Return the browned beef to the carrots and onions. Season lightly with salt and ground black pepper. Add 1-2 bay leaves and 0.5 tsp of dried oregano. Pour 1.5 cups of beef stock into the pan if you have it, or hot water. Bring the liquid to a boil, cover the pan with a lid and turn the heat down to the minimum at which you can still see a faint simmer. By the way, you can throw the bay leaf away after 20-30 mins if you see fit.
   
5. Important: do not rush the cooking under any circumstances – a faint simmer only. And don't stir the beef with the carrots and onions while it all braises. There is no need – there is enough liquid in the pan, nothing will burn or stick. Besides, this keeps the braised onions whole. Beef usually braises for about 1.5 hours, but meat from an older animal may need longer, while tender veal will be ready in an hour.
   
6. At the end of cooking, if there is still a lot of liquid in the pan, take off the lid and turn the heat up a little so that some of it evaporates. Put the finished meat with the onions and carrots on plates and spoon over the remaining liquid – it is much like a sauce and makes the dish juicy. You can garnish with parsley and a stalk of green onion.
   
7. We usually don't make a side dish for this, since there are plenty of vegetables in it already. Fresh bread and wine – that is all. If you like, add mashed potatoes, made a little looser than usual. Or, half an hour before the end of cooking, put potatoes cut into large wedges, or mushrooms, into the pan under the lid – and don't stir.