At Provenir we really can’t pick a favourite between winter and summer. Summer means BBQ season and a chance to flex our grill skills and amaze our friends and family with flame-cooked tender goodness. Whilst winter allows us to crawl into those tasty and comforting stews and casseroles that blanket the house in rich aromas and warm our bellies and hearts.

In between is spring, a real Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde season – too early for the summer produce and too hard to give up the winter warmers we have been loving. But like the girl in the Old El Paso advert says “Why can’t we have both?!” Well, you can! Here are our tips on making the most of spring using sustainably sourced Provenir beef and seasonal produce. 

Holding onto winter: Springtime Pot-au-feu or Pho

The beauty of spring is there are still tons of great winter vege available plus some new season produce is hitting the stores. You should be seeing asparagus, zucchini flowers and silverbeetcoming in, plus globe artichokes, mushrooms, and sugar snap peas are great and more affordable. If you want to finish your stew season with something truly spectacular, try a Springtime Pot-au-feu Beef Stew. This French classic allows you to make the most of spring new vegetables like pencil thin baby carrots and baby fennel. It’s actually two meals and you can cook it over two days making a broth or bullion by boiling the meat first and then saving that for day two when you add more vegetables and the potatoes. It is rich and tender. If you try this recipe and consider using our Osso Buco so you get the bone marrow but any mixture of lean and more fatty meats will work. 

Vietnam cuisine was heavily influenced by the French, so the hugely popular Pho (pronounced Fur) is a variety of Pot-au-feu (the Pho comes from the Feu) and it is a great alternative. The broth is essentially the same but with more ginger and spices like cinnamon, cardamom, coriander and star anise – consider using our Roasted Bone Broth as a brilliant base). You also add noodles and as much chilli as you care to. The fresh piles of bean sprouts, Thai basil and coriander on the side add to the fresh spring feel. It is delicious and understandably, a very popular dish. 

Leaping into Summer: Thai Beef Salad

This is steak and salad with a difference. There are a lot of variations, some use rice, some noodles but the dressing is key. We like using lemon grass in ours, but fresh lime is doing the heavy lifting here. The fresh mint, coriander, bean sprouts and capsicum, give it a lovely freshness while the chilli and fish sauce provide it with Asian flavours that excite the taste buds. With mangos and sugar snap peas coming into season try this recipe that uses those for extra sweetness. As for the meat, the trick is to go as rare as you can and rest it well. We like using a big fat rump steak, it gives you nice thin slices with just a little fat on the end of each slice. Make sure you trim the fat to make it consistent and render it by standing the steak on its end, fat side down, for a minute or so. If you want to go all out try it with our Wagyu Porterhouse steaks. The tenderness and flavour are perfect for Thai Beef Salad.

Whether it’s the BBQ or the Slow Cooker you can make the most of this notoriously volatile season by using the best produce available together with our 6 star ethically produced beef to deliver taste to your table. Enjoy!