The temperature hovered around 0°C last night. I know that isn’t cold in some places but it is here. But the days are bright and the cold wind has dropped. The small plants from our first sowing of broad beans are doing well although those from the second sowing haven’t appeared yet. Everything else in the garden seems dormant apart from the herbs: bay, rosemary, thyme and parsley. I picked a large bunch of each for a casserole today. I love making casseroles because they seem to combine fresh ingredients in a magical way that creates something more than the sum of them all. And you can go out for a Sunday morning stroll in the sun, leaving it all to cook gently, and return to the appetising smell that fills the kitchen, as we did at lunchtime today.
Beef and red wine casserole – for 4
600 grams stewing beef (I used jarret or shin), cut in chunks; 1 onion, finely chopped; 3 carrots, finely chopped; 6 cloves of garlic, chopped; sprigs of rosemary and thyme; 2 tablespoons chopped parsley; 3 large bay leaves; 2 tablespoons juniper berries and 1 tablespoon black peppercorns, lightly crushed in a pestle and mortar; 2 dozen black olives; 500 ml red wine; 1 large glass Cartagène or brandy (optional); 1 tablespoon flour; olive oil; salt.
Cook the onion and carrot in a little olive oil in a cast-iron pan until the onion has softened. Add the pieces of beef, stir and allow to brown slightly. Add the garlic, juniper berries, peppercorns and Cartagène and stir again. Cover the meat with the red wine and add the herbs and salt. Bring to the boil and simmer for 3 hours, checking occasionally that there is enough liquid and adding the olives after about 2 hours. 10 minutes before serving mix the flour with a little of the liquid from the casserole then add the paste back to the pan to thicken it. Serve garnished with the chopped parsley, with rice or, as we ate it for lunch today, with potatoes mashed with olives and garlic. Guaranteed to warm on a winter’s day!
olivesandartichokes 
I’d probably put a little crushed, dried chilli in there (if I was cooking it), but I love the 2 dozen olives and juniper berries 🙂
I did think of putting some piment d’Espelette in it, but then decided to leave the herbs and juniper berries to dominate – and it was quite spicy!
Methinks I most love your description of a ‘large’ glass of brandy [that is NOT optional to me!] in the delicious ‘stew’ and learning ‘shin’ could also be termed ‘jarret’? And, OK, writing from the hottish beginning to an Australian summer, DO be happy with O degrees C, not that we get it here more than 5-6 times a year, but it is chillingly delicious [ie, one closes the front door rather fast 🙂 !!!! By 3-4 degrees down we too will yowl!!
I envy you the beginning of summer – my favourite time of year!
It´s 4am on a cold, sleepless English night and I could just eat a warming bowl of this!
Oh, I hope you get some sleep soon!
You certainly are correct about a casseroles being more than a sum of its parts. What a great set of ingredients! The juniper berries, olives, fresh herbs. I can only imagine the wonderful aromas wafting about your kitchen.
It was wonderful – and there’s some left over for today too!
Very satisfying dish. I know what you mean about 0C – it just feels very cold. It’s our stone houses, I think.
Our problem with living in a Mediterranean climate is that we don’t have enough heating for freezing nights because we only need it for a few days of the year….I hope! But at least the sun always feels warm during the day.
The problem with the warm afternoons are the mosquitos that followed us on our afternoon dog walk! Our visitor couldn’t believe we still have mosquitos in December!!