Recipe Categories
Meat 
Beef Wine

James's Skirt Steak Bacon Mushroom Red Wine

1 kg skirt of beef cut into 4 steaks
Bouquet garni of:
6 x coriander seeds
2 sprg thyme
1 x few sprigs ol parsley
1 x few peppercorns and 1 bay leaf all tied up In muslin or a large leek leaf
600 ml red wine preferably Rhone
2 tbl groundnut oil
1 tbl butter
20 sm pickling onlons peeled
2 lrg carrots cut into thick slices
2 stk celery cut Into large pieces
10 gm plain flour
1 tsp tomato puree
200 gm button mushrooms cleaned and lett whole
300 gm smoked streaky bacon rinds removed
1 x salt and pepper

 Method :
Marinating the beef:
You will need to marinate the beef for 24 hours. This dish for four takes about 30 min to prepare and 2 1/2 hr to cook.
Place beef steaks into a bowl add bouquet garni and pour over red wine. Cover with clingfilm and leave in fridge for 24 hours. Preheat oven to 180 C (350 F mark 4). Strain off and reserve red wine and bouquet garni. Allow meat to rest for a few min and then pat dry with kitchen paper. Heat groundnut oil in a large castiron casserole on the stove and brown the steaks on both sides. Remove meat and spoon off fat. Add butter to the same casserole and lightly brown all the vegetables except the mushrooms for 45 min. Sprinkle with flour through a sieve and cook for further 34 min. Add l/4 of reserved red wine tomato puree and bouquet garni and whisk to prevent lumps forming. Add remaining wine and steaks. Bring to boil skim cover and cook slowly in the preheated oven for 2 hr.
While meat is cooking cut bacon into large strips about 2.5cm long and 1 cm thick and place in cold unsalted water. Bring to the boil and cook for 3 min. Strain put aside and add to beef after its first hour of cooking. Add mushrooms 10 min before the end of the cooking time.
Remove bouquet garni taste and season with salt and pepper. Be careful about the salt as the bacon will be salty Serve