BEEF OR VENISON CASSEROLE

One of the most useful things about pressure cooking is that less gives you more. In rich red wine casseroles, for example, you need much less alcohol than in a conventional recipe because all the liquid stays in the sealed cooker and intensifies the flavour. This recipe is written as a good blueprint for any meat/alcohol casserole, so you can vary all aspects of it if you keep the liquid levels the same. Any leftovers can be shredded and added to pasta.

SERVES 4-6

1 tbsp olive oil

100g smoked bacon lardons or pancetta

750g beef or venison, diced

2 tsp plain flour

½ tsp mustard powder 1 onion, sliced

2 carrots, cut on the diagonal

2 celery sticks, cut into chunks

150ml red wine or beer

1 head of garlic, broken up but unpeeled

a bouquet garni of 2 bay leaves, 1 sprig of thyme, 1 sprig of rosemary and 1 tsp crushed juniper berries (if using venison)

150ml well-flavoured beef stock or jus

chopped parsley, to serve

BEURRE MANIÉ (OPTIONAL)

1 tbsp plain flour 1 tbsp butter

Heat the olive oil in your pressure cooker. Add the bacon or pancetta and sauté until crisp and brown. Remove. Toss the beef or venison in the flour and mustard powder and season well with salt and pepper. Sear in the pressure cooker until brown on all sides. Remove.

Add the onion, carrots and celery to the pressure cooker and

sauté for a few minutes until just starting to take on some colour. Pour in the red wine or beer, then stir, making sure you deglaze the base of the cooker properly (see tip) – this is especially important if you are using an electric pressure cooker as anything stuck to the base can set off the burn alarm.

Add the garlic, bouquet garni and beef stock or jus. Return the beef or venison to the cooker. Season again, then close the lid and bring up to high pressure. Cook for 20 minutes. Remove from the heat and allow to drop pressure naturally.

Remove the garlic cloves and squeeze out their flesh. Return these to the casserole along with the bacon lardons and stir on a low heat for a couple of minutes.

Serve with a sprinkling of parsley. If you want to thicken the sauce of the casserole, use a little beurre manié – mash the flour with the butter and whisk into the casserole a little at a time until thicker. This is good served with dauphinoise potatoes.

TIP Flour can cause burning or stop your pressure cooker from coming up to pressure. If you deglaze properly, this won’t happen.