Daube of Beef Provencal

Sounds fancy, tastes lovely, and sophisticated enough to serve for a dinner party. And again a good crock pot recipe for the winter.

Equipment

• 1 chopping board
• 1 large chopping knife
• frying pan
• measuring cups and spoons
• string
• Medium sized bowl
• Colander
• Deep serving Bowl
• Whisk
• Crock Pot (slow cooker)

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 125g thickly sliced pancetta
• 6 whole beef cheeks or 1kg of lean chuck steak
• 1 large white or brown onion
• 2 carrots
• 1 small butternut pumpkin (butternut squash)
• 1 1/2 cups red wine (make sure it's drinkable - bad wine makes a bad dish)
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 bay leaf
• 3 stalks of parsley
• 1 spring thyme
• 2 tomatoes
• 1/2 cup of beef stock
• 1 orange or mandarin
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• 30g butter (plus additional knob if you choose to make mash)
• 1 1/2 tbsp plain flour
• Bread rolls

Method

• Cut up the lean chuck steak into large cubes (beef cheeks can stay whole). Cube the pancetta.
• Cut up the onion, cut the tomato into quarters, thickly slice the carrot, and peel, de-seed and chop the butternut pumpkin into large chunks.
• Heat the oil in the frying pan, to a medium-high heat, then fry the pancetta for 2-3 minutes until the fat is transparent. Add the beef and brown it in batches over a high heat, putting the cooked meat into the Crock Pot. 
• Add the onions, and carrot, and cook slowly for five minutes, then add to the Crock Pot.
• Peel and smash your garlic cloves, put into the Crock Pot, and add the wine, chopped tomato, and beef stock.
• Create your own Bouquet Garni, by tying up your thyme, bay leaf and parsley. Add to the Crock Pot, with your salt and pepper.
• Wash your orange or mandarin, and then use your peeler with the orange skin to create an orange rind peel about 5 cm long. One is fine, but two is better. Add to the Crock Pot
• At this point, decide if you want to serve butternut pumpkin mash, or would like to serve it more as a stew with pumpkin pieces. If serving mash, put the pumpkin pieces into the medium-sized bowl with cold water, cover and put in the fridge, to cook before serving. Otherwise, just add the pumpkin pieces to the Crock Pot.

At this point, you can put the crock pot ceramic bowl and lid into the fridge if you are preparing this the night before, and take it out in the morning to cook.

• Put the Crock Pot on to slow cook for the day.
• Twenty minutes before, if making mash, put the pumpkin pieces into a pot of boiling water, with a pinch of salt, and boil for 15-20 minutes. Drain, add the additional knob of butter, then mash.
• Before serving, strain the stew through the colander over the medium-sized bowl, and place the beef, vegetables, etc into a deep serving bowl. Remove the bouquet garni and orange peel.
• Melt the butter in the microwave for 20 seconds, then whisk in the flour. Add to the medium bowl of stew juices, and whisk through, then pour over the beef, vegetables, etc in the serving bowl.

Serve

Serve the bowl of daube (with mash in another bowl if this option was chosen). Warm your bread rolls for 5 minutes in a medium oven.