Slow-cooked Brisket with Prunes - Myaso s chernoslivom

I love to slow-cook this on a Sunday, ready for the week ahead. My babushka Liana often pairs meat with prunes, a common combination influenced by the Yiddish community that lived in Ukraine. Use any sort of beef or bone stock; I have made this plenty of times with just water. You could also use sweet paprika instead of mustard in this recipe. Serve with potatoes, boiled, baked, mashed with soured cream... however you wish.

Serves 6-8

50g butter or oil 

1 onion, finely chopped

1 garlic clove, crushed

1 large carrot, thinly sliced into half-moons or quarters

1kg brisket, diced into 2cm chunks

400g passata 

500ml beef or bone stock 

150g pitted prunes 

1 tbsp smooth or grainy mustard 

1 bay leaf 

salt and pepper

boiled, baked or mashed (I like this with soured cream mashed into the potatoes), to serve

Melt 30g of the butter in a large casserole dish over a medium–high heat. Add the onion, garlic and carrot, then cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes until slightly golden and aromatic. Take care not to burn the garlic – adjust the heat as needed. Remove the mixture from the dish. 

Add the remaining butter to the dish and the diced brisket. Cook the meat on all sides over a medium–high heat for  

10 minutes, then return the vegetable mixture. Stir in the passata, stock, prunes, mustard, bay leaf and 750ml of water. Cover with a lid and gently simmer for 2½–3 hours over a low–medium heat. Check regularly, and if the liquid is evaporating too much, add another 250ml of water. 

After about 3 hours, remove from the heat, taste and season with salt and pepper. You can keep the meat chunky or use a fork to break it up. 

Serve with boiled, baked or mashed potatoes, as you like.

This is an edited extract from Sour Cherries & Sun Flowers by Anastasia Zolotarev, Published by Quadrille. 📷 Karen Fisher and Anastasia Zolotarev.