For 6-8 people

Ingredients:
1kg gravy beef
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 medium brown onions chopped
2 cloves garlic chopped
150gm pearl barley
2 teaspoons cracked black pepper
500ml beef stock
1.5 litres water
salt
2 tablespoons coarsley chopped fresh flast-leaf parsley

Trim fat from beef and cut into 1cm pieces. Heat oil in a large pan; cook onion and garlic, stirring until onion is soft. Add beef, barley, stock, pepper and water; bring to the boil, simmer, covered, for 3 hours, stirring occasionally. Season to taste with salt if needed; stir in parsley.

2.5lbs round steak
5 tablespoons plain flour
2 teasp. pepper and salt
2 medium onions
2 cloves garlic
juice 2 lemons
0.5 lb mushrooms
1 - 1.5 pints rich stock (Beef or chicken)
1 dessert spoon vegemite
0.5 pint sour cream
paprika

Remove fat and cut steak into 0.5" cubes.
Toss cubes in seasoned flour. Oil bottom
of large pan then fry cubed meat till
browned all over. Remove and put into saucepan.
Fry garlic and mushrooms till golden brown then
add to meat. Fry mushrooms and add to saucepan
with the lemon juice and stock. Use remaining
flour for thickening. Cover saucepan and
simmer for 1.25hrs.
Stir in sour cream and paprika before serving.


(This was a recipe of my mother's from the 1960's
when Greta Anna's Kitchen was established in
Pymble, influencing a decade of cooks)

Minced Meat with Rice, Pine Nuts & Almonds

Ingredients:

1 lb basmati rice
250gms minced beef or lamb
2 oz pine nuts
2 oz slivered almonds
olive oil
salt
black pepper
0.5 teaspoon ground cinnamon
0.25 teaspoon ground allspice
2oz sultanas or seedless raisins

Cook the basmati rice separately.
Fry the mixed nuts separately until they are lightly roasted and put aside. Fry the meat in oil, adding a few tablespoons of water and crushing it with a fork until it has changed in colour and become soft, light and crumbly. Mix meat with the nuts, spices, salt, pepper and sultanas.

Serve the rice first in a bowl and top with the meat mixture. It tastes delicious mixed in as you eat and served with a yoghurt and mint dressing.


Basic recipe from Claudia Roden "A Book of Middle Eastern Food" 1982

For 3-6 people

Ingredients:

6 veal shin bones
salt and pepper
flour for coating
75gm butter
olive oil
1 small onion finely chopped
150ml dry white wine
2 tomatoes peeled and chopped
a little hot stock
1 clove garlic
2 sprigs parsley finely chopped
1-2 teasp grated lemon rind

Nick the meat around the bones to prevent the meat curling up. Sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper and dip into flour. Heat the butter and a little oil in a shallow pan and add the onion and cook for 2-3 minutes, then add the shin bones. First brown the undersides then carefully turn over and brown the top sides. Add the wine, cook over a fairly good heat until it has almost evaporated, add the tomatoes, lower the heat, cover the pan and cook gently for 1-1.5 hrs...until the meat is so tender it literally falls off the bones. From time to time baste with hot stock.

Finally mix the remaining ingredients to make the "gremolata" and sprinkle it over the top of the bones immediately before serving. The gremolata really makes this dish.

Serve with risotto, couscous, mashed potato or plain rice. Delicious!
(ref: "Italian Cooking" Robin Howe 1979)

Serves 8 - 10

Ingredients:

1 piece of topside or silverside roast
Olive oil
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper


(Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall "The River Cottage Meat Book" 2004)
He recommends a cold roast beef, however, I've followed this recipe each time and the hot roast has been medium rare and delicious. What's left we use for salads and sandwiches.

Weigh the roast. Length of cooking time depends on the weight.
Massage a little olive oil into the beef and sprinkle with salt and black pepper. Put it in a roasting tin and place in a hot oven (220degrees C) for the half hour sizzle. Turn the oven down to 150 degrees C and cook for a further 10 minutes per 500gm. Remove from the oven cover with foil and leave briefly before serving for a hot roast. For cold roast leave to cool at room temperature.