Beer- Braised Beef with Onion, Carrot and Turnips

Cooking Light, October 2009
Beer- Braised Beef with Onion, Carrot and Turnips
It’s safe to say that Cooking Light is most always my favorite “light” magazine to cook from.  Nothing is ever too gourmet or exotic, and the recipes are pretty family-friendly.  Not all of their recipes are super low in calories, but I usually pick and choose and can find some winners in every issue.  Their website is also a terrific resource for recipe searching. 

Braising is a method of cooking in the kitchen that is nice for winter.  Tough cuts of meat (usually inexpensive) cook for long periods of time in bubbling liquid.  It warms up your kitchen and results in meltingly tender meat.  (Ideally…)  This recipe was in a section of the magazine called, “The Enlightened Cook.”  The focus in this section was Budget Cooking:  Feed 4 for less than $10.  That’s a great concept, but  I wasn’t entirely happy with this recipe- see my notes below.
Beer- Braised Beef with Onion, Carrot and Turnips
Source:  Cooking Light, October 1009

ingredients:
3 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
1 1/2 Tbsp. canola oil
One 1-pound boneless chuck roast, trimmed
1 tsp. salt, divided
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1 cup fat-free, less-sodium beef broth
4 cloves garlic, crushed
12 ounces dark beer
1 bay leaf
3 carrots, peeled and cut diagonally into 1/2-inch-thick slices
9 ounces small turnips, peeled and cut into wedges
1 medium onion, peeled and cut into wedges
1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

directions:
1.  Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.
2.  Place flour in a shallow dish.  Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat.  Sprinkle beef evenly on all sides with 1/2 tsp. salt and pepper; dredge in flour.  Add beef to pan; cook 10 minutes, turning to brown on all sides.  Add broth and next 3 ingredients (through bay leaf), scraping pan to remove browned bits; bring to a boil.  Cover and bake at 300 degrees F. for 1 1/2 hours.  Add carrots; cover and cook 25 minutes.  Add remaining 1/2 tsp. salt, turnips and onion; cover and cook an additional 1 hour and 5 minutes or until vegetables are tender and beef is fork-tender.
3.  Remove beef and vegetables from pan; discard bay leaf.  Cover beef mixture; keep warm.  Let cooking liquid stand 10 minutes.  Place a zip-top plastic bag inside a 2-cup glass measure.  Pour cooking liquid into bag; let stand 10 minutes (fat will rise to the top).  Seal bag; carefully snip off 1 bottom corner of bag.  Drain cooking liquid into a medium bowl, stopping before fat layer reaches opening; discard fat.  Serve cooking liquid with beef and vegetables.  Sprinkle each serving with 1 Tbsp. parsley.

Yield:  4 servings (serving size:  3 ounces beef, 1 cup vegetables, and about 1/2 cup cooking liquid)

calories  383; fat 19.7g (sat 6g, mono 9.1g, poly 2.2g); protein 24.4g; fiber 3.6g; chol 70mg; iron 2.9mg; sodium 815mg; calc 68mg

Notes from Culinary Covers:
*Perhaps my beef wasn’t a great cut or something (I bought exactly what was suggested in the recipe above), but it didn’t turn out to be very tender at all.
*The turnips don’t do anything for this dish. 
*It might be nice to use whole shallots in place of the onion.
*I found myself wanting some sweet potatoes or some other kind of potato in this dish to make it feel more hearty.
*I might make this again if I could find a more tender cut of meat (with modifications mentioned above).

Did this recipe deserve the cover?  No.  I didn’t think the dish was all that great.  It was supposed to be the highlight of their theme:  Easy, Hearty Dishes for Fall.  I didn’t think it was particularly all that easy to make, and it didn’t impress either.  The biggest problem was that the meat just didn’t turn out to be very tender.

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Tagged as: beef recipes, cooking light