Braised Beef with Salsa Verde

Christmas is the time of the year to make the most delicious meals and simple meals. Yesterday besides my Christmas Cake (you can read in my previous post) I made a very nice and easy stew, they only thing is that it had to cook for about 4 hours, but it was worth it! Absolutely delicious, we still have some left over for today, I can hardly wait to eat it again.

The ingredients you need for the stew are:

• 1 liter beef stock
• 1 kg beef in one piece
• Fresh thyme
• Laurel leaf
• 250 gr. shallots cut in quarts
• 250 gr. champignons cut in quarts
• 1 carrot pealed and cut in small slices

To start the best is to have the meat at room temperature, so I recommend to take out of the refrigerator about an hour before you are going to start cooking. Then dry the meat with a kitchen towel, sprinkle all round with salt and pepper. Put in a casserole some olive oil, once is hot add the meat and in 5 minutes bake all round until bruin. Add the stock, thyme and laurel leaf. Once is almost boiling turn the fire very low, cover the casserole and cook for about 3 hours and 30 minutes. Keep an aye that it doesn't boil other wise the fire should be even lower. After that time add the vegetables and cook for another 30 minutes, until the vegetables are ready.

The ingredients you need for the Salsa Verde are:

• A lot of fresh parsley.
• 1 tablespoon cappers
• 4 anchovies (since we don't like them I replace them for extra cappers)
• 1 garlic clove
• 2 soft crackers
• Red vinegar
• Extra verge olive oil

Put all the ingredients in the mixer. After mixing well add some salt and pepper and if you feel that is to dry, add some olive oil. Keep in the refrigerator until you need it.

Once the stew is ready, take the meat out of the casserole and cut in slices. Serve the slices with the vegetables and the stock and some of the salsa verde. Perfect with bread and read wine. Merry Christmas to all!