Know Your Thermomix: Reverse Blade Function/2
Have you made a stew yet in your Thermomix? Aside from the wonderful Chicken in Yoghurt recipe from Fast and Easy Indian Cooking I have to admit I haven’t done so very often. I suppose this is because I am usually making catering-size quantities of stews so I use my Thermomix for all the preparation processes like chopping and sautéeing – oh, and peeling garlic, too – and then bake the casserole or stew in the oven.
This is a perfectly fine way of cooking for large numbers with Thermomix, but today I was cold and I wanted to stew up some on-the-bone stewing lamb for me and ThermoHubby John. Dinner for two in the Thermomix tonight, if you please!
One of the cleverest things about Thermomix is the Reverse Blade Function. It not only enables you to knock the skins off your garlic cloves, that blunt reverse edge of the blade makes it possible to stir and cook a risotto without blending those lovely grains of Arborio rice. In this case, it will gently stir my meat and vegetables as they cook, and I will start with chunks of meat and vegetables and finish with chunks of meat and vegetables.
This is another of my Refrigerator Raid Recipes, where I had one or two ingredients I wanted to use and chose what was available to go with it. Today I had a pack of lamb neck stewing meat (on the neck bone) and a bag of frozen red wine. You read me right, Dear Reader, frozen red wine. We had opened a bottle of red wine whose reality did not live up to its promise, and instead of pouring it down the sink ThermoHubby John frugally poured it into a heavy plastic bag and froze it for just such an occasion. The raid on my refrigerator yielded some past-their-best tomatoes, some carrots, leeks and a bit of red chilli. A red onion and a few cloves of garlic got up close and personal with a sprig of rosemary from the garden and hey presto – Lamb stewed in Red wine, Thermomix style!
Oh, and one more thing. I added absolutely no fat to this recipe, and Thermomix perfectly sautéed my onion and garlic without it!
Madame Thermomix’s Lamb stewed in Red wine
Use this as a template for your own Refrigerator Raid Recipe, using whatever ingredients present themselves. Thermomix’s clever Reverse Blade Function will do its job for the rest. With Thermomix there’s really no waste!
Ingredients
Aromatic vegetables (I used onion, garlic, herbs and a bit of red chilli)
Meat if you wish, or go for a delicious meatless stew (I used lamb neck for stewing, still on the neck bone, but large diced pieces of meat are great)
Assorted vegetables, cut into big chunks (I used 3 carrots, half a leek and 4 overripe tomatoes)
Liquid for stewing such as stock, water or wine
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
Method
- Peel and quarter your onion(s) and garlic. Drop on the blades of the Thermomix running at Speed 5; quickly add herbs and turn off immediately. Scrape sides of bowl with spatula. Sauté 100 °C/5 minutes/Speed Spoon.
- Add meat, veg, seasonings and liquid to cover. Cook 100 °C/60 minutes/Speed Spoon/Reverse Blade Direction. Check meat for doneness and continue to cook if required. Since my meat was in large pieces on the bone, I cooked my stew for another hour, after which time my meat was tender and falling off the bones, my carrots were still in large chunks, and my wine had reduced down with the tomatoes to a thick, glorious gravy. Thank you to Thermomix and its Reverse Blade Function!
Bon appétit !
That’s great, Georgie, good luck! Your beef cheeks will be gloriously tender and tasty I’m sure. I’m even a bit jealous and certainly drooling at the thought of them 🙂
Thank you once again for the quick reply. I will do this tonight if I get the chance or early next week and will certainly reply back 🙂
Hi Georgie! The best rule of thumb that I know is to use as much ingredients as will safely fit into the bowl. I’d suggest you put everything out on your worktop and visually compare the volume of ingredients to the bowl size. You might be able to fit all the meat in the bowl but would you have room for your other ingredients?
Start with a goodly amount of aromatics (onion, garlic, celery), chop them and sauté 5 minutes and then fill the bowl with as much meat as it will hold – maybe stop at the MAX mark. Cover with liquid and off you go. Don’t forget the REVERSE BLADE function 😉
If you want to play it safe and have a shorter cooking time you could do your veg and then add meat to the 1 or 1.5 Litre mark. Remember, the more ingredients you have to cook, the longer the cooking time.
Happy Thermomix cooking and do please report back on your stew and its ingredients!
Thank you MT! I brought the meat and Have been happily waiting for your reply. This will be our Thursday night dinner now 🙂
I brought beef cheek and have 1.5kg total. How much would you suggest I use?
Hi Georgie! Many thanks for reading Why Is There Air. I hope this reply gets to you in time to make your stew with reverse blade function 😉
Yes, the recipe says “liquid to cover” so as you say, you add enough stock/water/wine to just cover everything.
A good rule of thumb to remember is the more liquid you add, the thinner your sauce will be. To start, to properly cook your ingredients in a stew such as this you need to immerse all of them in liquid, and then your cooking time will depend on factors like the desired doneness of the meat and, as in the example I used, the size of your ingredients. (Big chinks of meat and/or carrots, etc will take longer to cook than smaller pieces.) And in much the same way, the more liquid you use, either the thinner your sauce will be or the longer it will take to reduce it down to a lovely thick sauce.
I do hope Madame Thermomix came to Georgie’s rescue in time for you to produce a wonderful Refrigerator Raid stew. What ingredients did you use, Georgie?
Hi. How much water/stock do you add? Is it enough to just cover everything? Thank you
Hail Thermo Queen! Many thanks for your comment. Comments from readers are what make this blog interesting for everyone so keep them coming!
Yes, you can freeze Thermomix stock paste. It’s really easy to portion it in ice cube trays, or if you’re lazy like me, just put it in a zip lock bag in the freezer and take out a spoonful whenever you need it. The high salt content acts as a preservative but also prevents the paste from freezing solid (think sea water – other than in the Antarctic, have you ever seen the ocean freeze??) so it’s easy to dip that spoon in there!
Fresh yeast only lasts a couple of weeks in the fridge so I most often portion it out in 20 or 30 gram chunks which I wrap in cling film or aluminum foil and freeze. Then I pop a chunk into my Thermomix with the water, sugar and oil (if using) from my bread recipe and warm it at 37 degrees C for 5 to 10 minutes to defrost and activate the yeast. This makes great bread that rises beautifully and is oh so handy!
Other ideas for pre-preparing and freezing are curry pastes, tomato sauce, bearnaise and hollandaise sauces, part-sauteed mushrooms, and of course fruit for smoothies and sorbets.
I know there are more ideas out there so, Dear Readers, please leave your comments with the things you freeze to make Thermomix life even more fast and fabulous!
I love your blog. Is it true we can freeze thermomix stock paste and also fresh yeast for breads? What other things can we freeze or pre-prepare to make Thermomix life even more fast and fabulous?
Yes, I was amazed at how good an idea freezing the wine for cooking actually was. But because of the alcohol content, it doesn’t freeze 100% solid so make sure you put your wine into a really well-closed container or plastic bag. ThermoHubby didn’t quite get the bag completely locked shut so I’m still finding red semi-frozen drops on the freezer bottom… 🙂
My, this stew looks absolutely fab’. Nice idea from Thermohubby to freeze the wine!
Many thanks for sharing my blog with your customers! I really find that I share everything about my Thermomix – the food, the passion for cooking, and the joy of eating 😉
This book was the customer incentive for last month.
I’ll send it on to my customers and I look forward to trying it!
(Pity that I’ve put a roast on tonight!!)