Granny's casserole
Granny's casserole
This is a very filling warming casserole from my granny, which uses a few simple ingredients and sauces them with pantry staples you probably already have.
I probably should have posted this earlier when the weather was seriously cold.
Ingredients:
1kg meat (gravy beef, chuck steak, steak)
Carrots
Onions
1 spoonful of olive oil (can be substituted with canola, sunflower or vegetable oil)
Knob of butter (optional)
Sauce:
5-6 forkfuls of plain flour or cornflour
1/2 tsp black pepper (or less as preferred - which I did! That's a lot of pepper)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp powdered mustard (or less as preferred - which I did! That's a lot of mustard powder and it can be hot)
3 large spoonfuls of vinegar
2 large spoonfuls of Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup tomato sauce
Method:
Dice meat (discard fat). Put into frying pan with olive oil and butter. Brown meat then put into casserole dish.
Peel carrots and onions then slice both into rounds. Add to the casserole dish.
Make sauce:
Into a mug put flour, pepper, salt, sugar and mustard powder (dry ingredients). Then add vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, and tomato sauce. Mix well then add to casserole dish.
Stir and just cover everything with water. Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for about 30 minutes.
Serve with mashed potatoes.
Notes
This is a slow moist cooking method intended for tough inexpensive cuts of meat but you can use anything you have. Stir fry beef is acceptable if that's all you can get hold of, or you can even slice in leftover cooked sausages to use them up. As a kid we sometimes had rabbit.
The measurements are a bit arbitrary as this recipe came from my actual grandma. If making a large quantity of meat, veg and potatoes (big family sized) you could use tablespoons for the 'large spoonfuls' of the condiments so there's enough flavour. But when reducing the amount of meat and veg down I might have just used generous dessert spoons. The forkfuls were just normal forks heaped with flour, 'spooned' out of the bag or box.
That's a lot of black pepper and mustard powder written there, intended to season a large family sized amount of bland meat and veg plus the potatoes. If you're scaling the amount of meat and veg down, are serving young kids, or you don't do spice at all definitely reduce the amount of those. I have a memory of making a smaller (possibly halved or less) quantity and using 1/8 tsp each of the pepper and mustard powder for myself.
I found when using plain flour it tended to settle to the bottom during cooking, so I would take it out of the oven in the middle of cooking and give it a quick stir. It thickened fine.
I forget the timing but if the times don't line up it's definitely much better for the casserole to be well underway or ready first - as the casserole can wait for the potatoes to finish, while with the reverse the spuds might get cold or the casserole undercooked.
Don't omit the vinegar as the acidity helps tenderise tough cuts like gravy beef or chuck, and tastes good with the sweetness of the carrots.
You can probably do this in a slow cooker or an instant pot. I haven't tried but it seems well suited.
The big bags of brushed potatoes used to work out cheaper - if you have any children make them do the scrubbing and peeling 😏
If you don't feel like having potatoes you can add savoury dumplings in to cook. There are proper ways to make dumplings but I just used to make basic scone dough with salt and pepper, and add lumps of it maybe towards the end or when the casserole was taken out to stir? They cook in the sauce and puff up all fluffy inside.