Home from Home cooking in your Swift Holiday Home

With the winter season quickly approaching, we’ve created a collection of winter warming dishes.

Working closely with chef, author, TV presenter and food campaigner Rachel Green, we’ve created the perfect dish that you can prepare from the comfort of your own holiday home.

Rachel cooked-up this delicious braised beef shin and dumplings recipe inside the Swift Vendee Lodge using the five burner gas hob and Belling oven. Featuring beautifully tender beef shin in a melody of vegetables, pale ale and herbs, plus fluffy horseradish and parsley dumplings, this is highly flavoursome food that will warm the soul and delight the taste buds!

Serves: 6-8
Prep time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 2-2½ hours

Ingredients

• 75g plain flour
• Salt & pepper
• 1kg beef shin, diced
• 5 tbsp vegetable oil
• 2 large onions, chopped
• 2 large carrots, roughly chopped
• 1 whole garlic bulb, halved around the equator
• 1 tbsp tomato purée
• 500ml pale ale
• 500ml rich beef stock
• ½ tbsp Marmite
• 1 bay leaf
• ½ tsp dried thyme or mixed herbs
• 3 tbsp redcurrant jelly

For the dumplings:

• 150g self-raising flour
• 75g beef suet
• ¼ tsp dried thyme or mixed herbs
• 2 tbsp chopped parsley
• 3-4 tbsp creamed horseradish
• Salt & pepper

Method

• Preheat the oven to 160°C/140°C fan/ Gas Mark 2.
• Put the flour into a large mixing bowl and season with a little salt and pepper. Toss the pieces of beef in the flour until coated.
• Heat a tablespoon of oil in a frying pan and brown the meat in small batches. Once browned and caramelised, transfer the beef to a casserole pan using a slotted spoon and repeat, adding more oil to fry each further batch of beef.
• Add the remaining oil to the frying pan along with the chopped onions and carrots and cook, stirring until slightly brown, then add the garlic bulb halves, cut side down. When all the vegetables are caramelised, add the rest of the seasoned flour to the frying pan along with the tomato purée and cook for a further 30 seconds.
• Pour the pale ale into the frying pan and stir well, scraping the sticky bits off the bottom of the frying pan and then tip the whole lot into the casserole pan.
• Add the stock, Marmite, bay leaf, thyme or mixed herbs and redcurrant jelly. Stir well, bring to a simmer, taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary. Cover with a lid and cook for 2 hours in the preheated oven. Check the casserole from time to time, adding more stock if necessary.
• Towards the end of the 2 hours cooking time, make the dumplings. Mix all the ingredients together, season with a little salt and pepper and add 4-5 tablespoons of cold water until you have a slightly sticky dough. Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and shape into 10 equal-sized balls.
• Remove the casserole from the oven, taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary. If the sauce is looking a little too thick, add 100ml of water before placing the dumplings on top.
• Turn the oven up to 180°C/160°C fan/ Gas Mark 4, return the casserole to the oven and cook uncovered for 25-30 minutes until the dumplings are cooked through and slightly caramelised.
• Remove the casserole from the oven and serve immediately.