Braised veal - slow-cooked

A delicious stew or casserole, or cassolette. By whatever name it’s worth. This is one of Neil Perry’s with some small variations – but of course! Thank you Neil.

Ingredients

800g veal shoulder, cut into 3cm cubes

2 Tbsp plain flour to dust meat

80ml extra virgin olive oil

30g butter

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped or 2 tsp minced garlic

1 small leek, white part finely chopped

salt

250ml red or dry white wine

1L chicken stock

1 Tbsp tomato paste

400g can whole tomatoes, chopped

2 rosemary sprigs*

2 thyme sprigs*

1 fresh bay leaf (if you have it else use dried)

8 baby onions, peeled or equivalent larger onions (whatever you have)

8 baby carrots, peeled or use a couple of large carrots cut in chunks

freshly ground black pepper

For the gremolata

2 large handfuls flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped

finely grated zest of 1/2 orange, 1 clove garlic, minced

Put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Add a little olive oil or orange juice if it is too dry.

Method

Put the flour on a large plate and roll the veal shoulder cubes in it to coat – or put flour and meat in bag and shake to coat; this creates less mess!

Heat the oil and butter in a large, heavy-based saucepan and cook the veal in batches until browned all over. Remove the veal from the pan. Add the garlic, leek and salt and cook for 5 minutes until soft. Pour in the wine and simmer until reduced by half.

Add the stock and bring to a simmer. Add the tomato paste, canned tomatoes and herbs and stir well. Return the veal to the saucepan and simmer very gently for 1 hour with a lid on. Add the onions and carrots and cook for a further hour, stirring occasionally, until the meat is very tender.

Remove from the heat and discard the herbs. 

Serve sprinkled with gremolata or leave as a side.

Chook’s note: *what is a sprig? About 6-7 cm of the tender end of the stem.  Don’t go overboard! 1 sprig is roughly equivalent to 1 tsp fresh chopped rosemary; halve that for dried herbs. Thyme is about the same but err on the side of caution. 

If you can't get veal, blade or other steak works just as well.

After the first hour on the stove top, I transferred this to a moderate-slow oven for a further 1.5 to 2 hrs.

Gremolata is not to everyone’s taste. I love it but it can be a little overpowering. This dish is perfectly delicious without it.