I love this dish, the smell fills the house when it’s in the oven. It’s also easy to prepare, although it does take a long time to cook.
We have two versions in this house, I do a slow-cooked version with cannellini beans (recipe here), Mrs S uses a pressure cooker and her recipe features oxtail soup (must be Heinz).
Both are delicious, with different textures and many common ingredients. Beef, onions, garlic, carrots for starters. I put potatoes in the stew, Mrs S does them separately. But the most important component of the stew is the dumplings.
Uncooked dumplings. You don’t need to be very rigorous getting spherical dumplings, rougher dumplings will fluff up just the same.
Dumplings are easy enough to make, as long as you use suet and self-raising flour you can’t really go wrong. A generous helping of dried herbs and chilli add some flavour. We give them 20 minutes steaming over the stew. This allows the dumplings time to swell and acquire the required soft texture and some of the flavour of the stew. It also means that some moisture from the stew is lost so the stew thickens a bit.
Dumplings done, stew ready to serve.
I’ve just noticed that there’s a very angry-looking dumpling in the middle of the picture. Just as well we ate it before anyone noticed.
A favourite most of the year, more so when it’s chilly. This version takes two hours or more to cook. There’s a fast recipe that takes less time and uses a pressure cooker.
Timings: prep – 10 min Cook – 2 hours (or more)
Feeds four. Total cost (Nov 2025): £6.00 (stew) 60 p (dumplings)
Timings: Prep: 30 min. Cooking: 40 min Eat: 10 min
Ingredients
Stew
400 – 500 g cubed beef
Half a diced onion
two cloves garlic
two carrots, diced
400 g potatoes, cut into 2 cm pieces
one turnip, dice to the same size as the potatoes
Dried herbs – oregano, thyme and a bay leaf
Fresh rosemary (from the garden)
chilli flakes
beef stock pot
Veggie gravy granules
can of cannellini beans
Dumplings
100g self raising flour
50g suet (beef or vegetable)
Salt and dried herbs (a teaspoon or so of oregano, some black pepper and anything else you fancy)
water
The beef is the main cost of this dish, you can economise a bit but with cheaper beef you get more hard fat, which is unpleasant.
You’ll need a frying pan and a casserole dish.
Your choice of veg to add to the stew is personal, of course. I add turnips because they add an earthy taste to the stew, which not everyone likes.
1923 Bamforth postcard celebrating the turnip. James Bamforth & Co were probably best known for their saucy seaside postcardsTurnip! Baldrick’s favourite vegetable, they add an earthy flavour to the stew. Swedes can also be used.
Preheat the oven to 160 C/ gas 5.
Brown the beef in a little oil and add to the casserole dish when done. Fry the onions, garlic, herbs and spices before adding them to the pan. Dice the potatoes and turnip and add these to the rest of the ingredients. Add the stock pot or stock cube.
Beef, potatoes and turnip in the pot. Onions, garlic and herbs are hidden. Need to add cannellini beans and stock.
Drain a can of cannellini beans, add these and enough water to cover the ingredients. Give the while thing a good stir and put in the oven for at least 2 hours.
Beans and stock added. Now to cook for at least two hours.
Make the dumplings: Add the flour, suet, herbs and salt to a bowl. Gradually add water and stir well to get a dough that you can form into balls. These don’t need to be perfect. If the dough is too wet, add flour to the mix until you’re happy with how the dough behaves.
Uncooked dumplings. You don’t need to be very rigorous getting spherical dumplings, rougher dumplings will fluff up just the same.
About 20 minutes before serving, add the dumplings to the stew and cook for a further 20 minutes.
Dumplings done, stew ready to serve.
I did this using the slow method because we had to split out mealtime. Younger daughter has tap lessons that run until nearly 9 o’clock, so I served the rest of us at seven, then reheated the stew and added fresh dumplings to cook while I went to get her.
Grim up North Heath 