Boiled beef with Dumplings

Indigenous people love to boil food and boiling beef is no exception. Mom always started by boiling roast cuts with parsley, carrots, thyme and root vegetables in a big pot of stew. Once the stew had set up, she would boil dumplings right in the stew. It was a classic staple in our household and we’d devour it on a cold winter night. This recipe technique actually goes against standard culinary training but it doesn’t matter to me as we’ve been cooking like this for hundreds of years.
Yield 4 Servings Prep. Time 20 min Cooking Time 80 min Total Time 100 min

Ingredients

Here are the following ingredients:

Boiled Beef

  • 1 tbsp (15 mL) sunflower or canola oil
  • 3 potatoes, coarsely chopped
  • 2 EACH onions, carrots and sweet potatoes, coarsely chopped
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • ¾ lb (375 g) Beef Blade Roast, cut into ½- to ¾-inch (1 to 2 cm) cubes
  • 3 bay leaves
  • 1 tsp (5 mL) hot pepper flakes
  • 1½ tsp (7 mL) EACH salt and pepper

Dumplings

  • 1 cup (250 mL) all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp (5 mL) baking soda
  • ½ tsp (2 mL) salt

Shopping List

Here are the following shopping items to buy:

Directions

Follow these cooking methods/directions:

  1. Boiled Beef: Heat oil over high heat in a heavy stockpot or enamelled cast-iron roaster. Add potatoes, onions, carrots, sweet potatoes, garlic and beef. Cook, stirring, for about 20 minutes, until onions soften. Add bay leaves, hot pepper flakes, salt, pepper and 1 cup (250 mL) water. Bring to a boil.
  2. Cover, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 30 minutes.
  3. Dumplings: Meanwhile, combine flour, baking soda and salt in a bowl. Set aside.
  4. After the beef has simmered for about 25 minutes, add ⅓ cup (75 mL) water to flour mixture and slowly mix the dough by hand until shaggy (well mixed but slightly lumpy). Transfer dough to work surface and gently shape by hand into ping-pong sized rough balls.
  5. Drop each dumpling ball into the Boiled Beef. Cover tightly with the lid and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes, until puffed up and springy to touch and beef and vegetables are fork-tender. (Note – you can cut one open to test that they are fully cooked, not gooey in the centre).
  6. Discard bay leaves. Ladle the Boiled Beef and broth into 4 bowls and top each with dumplings.