Braised Steak with Onion & Leek

It’s hard to make brown food look good. Especially when you add a gelatinous looking ‘gravy’ to the mix and you’re photographing at night, but in the grunts words of TV chef Anne Burrel “brown food tastes good” and I’m here to agree.

With the approaching cold weather, I get excited about cooking again- all the rich, gravy-laden, melting, tender meat and roasted vegies are enough to make my toes curl. I am a mashed potato whore, I will do anything for a bit of mash and autumn/winter is the perfect excuse for me to bury my face in it’s creamy indulgence. I don’t plan my meals around core ingredients. I know I want mashed potato, so I plot what else I can make as an excuse to have it on the side.

This recipe was born of one such craving- I needed mash and was going to get it at any cost.

Add some tender meat that just melts in your mouth and the sweetness of the onion and leek braise and you have yourself a delish dinner, perfect for a cosy night in.

This recipe does need a few hours in the oven, so it’s not a weeknight dinner, although it would go great in a slow cooker, but you would need to adjust your liquids in the recipe to suit slow cookers. This recipe serves 2 with some leftover ‘sauce’ reserved to drizzle over mashed potato leftovers for lunch the next day. Yumsters!

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 thick sirloin steaks
• 3 onions, sliced
• 1 leek, sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped finely
• 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
• 3 cups beef stock
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tbsp HP sauce
• 1 tsp peppercorns
• 1/2 cup red wine
• plain flour, for dusting

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C.
2. Lightly coat each piece of steak in flour.
3. Heat oil in a non-stick frying pan over medium-high heat. Cook onions, garlic and leek until soft.
4. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of flour over onions. Stir until well combined.
5. Add Dijon mustard, sauces, peppercorns and wine and cook for a further minute before removing off the heat and setting aside in a bowl.
6. Cook steak for approx 3 minutes each side or until browned. Transfer to an ovenproof dish.
7. Slowly add onion and stock mixture to the ovenproof dish, covering the meat with liquid.
8. Bake for 2 hours or until steak is tender. Serve with potato mash, steamed vegies and roasted pumpkin.