Beef stew
I was in on my own last night and decided to make a big stew. My reasoning was that I am out tonight and I wanted to leave something nice for my pregnant wife, and then on Wednesday we are going to see the new bond movie, and will need a quick dinner.
We also had some left over rooty stuff from Friday night (carrots, potatoes, onions) which I thought I could throw in.
I bought a pack of organic stewing steak from Tesco. There was 650g in the pack and I think it cost just over a fiver. That's the good thing about a stew, you can afford to use organic meat. Whilst I was in Tesco I also had a look at my "stock options" (excuse the poor pun). Tesco do their own Tesco Finest stock in a vacuum pack. This is deceptive - it looks like the real stuff, but a read of the ingredients list shows it's mostly yeast extract and salt - so really it's just a stock cube that they've already made up for you. But what I did happen accross was a similar product by Knorr. This is actually made from chicken bones and vegetables, so seemed promising, and I don't think it was too pricey (about £1 a pack of 450ml).
I'm not an expert on stews, but I am trying to leearn, so to help me along I was vaguely referring to a Rick Stein recipe for "Carbonnade a la boeuf". This is a belgian stew which uses equal parts of stock and beer for the liquid. I didn't have any decent beer so opted to use red wine instead.
The first thing to do was brown the meat. This isn't a task I particularly like. For a start, it needs to be done in batches - and so can take ages. Secondly grease flies all over the place, and evaporates from the pan, so you end up with a kitchen like the inside of a wok pan and a face like a chip shop worker.
There's a few rules to browning which basically dictate the quality of the stew (the rest is just a case of waiting) so this is the point to take care and attention:
Don't crowd the pan! I usually use a big saute pan, but still the pieces of meat are spaced such that I can only really brown six or seven pieces at once.
Get the pan hot hot hot! Think fires of hell and you are probably close. So therefore use a robust oil which won't burn. Groundnut oil is a good option.
Brown each piece on all sides - Tongues are a useful implement for this.
But the main point is brown means brown. You aren't trying to turn the meat from red to pale grey - the stewing process will do that. You are trying to make a nice brown crust to give the stew a real flavour.
Before browning I tossed the meat in plain flour and black pepper (no salt, this dries out the meat). I just put it in a bowl and used my hands (some people put in a freezer bag and shake - whatever works for you, though an unnecessary waste of plastic in my opinion). The flour does two things, it helps make a nice brown crust on the meat, buy more importantly - it thickens the sauce as it cooks.
After I finished browning I let the pan cool off whilst I chopped some onions. I used three medium sized onions (Rick Stein's recipe had even more than that - but then it didn't have much else). Then I gently cooked these in the same pan. This is great as you are essentially frying onions in a mixture of oil and beef dripping. So they go really satisfyingly brown and take up all the flavour from the beef. I cooked them gently for about 10 minutes (Rick said 15 but I didn't feel that was necessary).
After that I chucked in some roughly chopped unpeeled (but washed) carrots and potatoes. You can probably use any root vegetables you want at this point. I like big chunks of carrots in my stews, and by adding potatoes you carb it up and it become a meal in itself (a "one pot wonder").
The I poured over the whole pack of stock (450ml) and about the same amount of red wine until the meat was covered. For flavourings I added just over 1 teaspoon of mustard powder, some worcester sauce (which I've recently discovered is great with any red meat sauce) and a few bay leaves. I didn't add any fresh herbs - I don't think rosemary goes that well with a really punchy dish like this. I wasn't sure about thyme either. I considered adding paprika, but I wasn't really trying to make a goulash, so I left it. I added a bit of pepper, but no salt as the ready made stock had plenty.
After bringing to a simmer I popped it in the oven at 160 and left it a while.
I think I decided to retrieve at about 2 1/2 hours later and by this point it smelled very very good. The whole flat had a wonderful earthy rustic smell. Timing is not crucial, and that's the beauty of a stew. Though as a general rule I wouldn't leave it less than 2 hours, but probably the longer the better. So it's a good one if you have some rellies driving down to eat with you, and you don't know if they're going to get stuck in traffic on the M1.
The final result looked and smelled great - I tasted a bit of the meat just to check. As I was cooking it for the next day I used one of my "flash cooling" tricks. The quicker you cool a dish down, the better it keeps. It also reduces the chance of bacterial contamination (because it doesn't spend a lot of time at cosy temperatures allowing them to breed), which is important when your wife is pregnant. To do this I split it into two metal bowls (smaller portions cool quicker) and left in a bath of ice water in the sink.
It's now in the fridge waiting to be eaten tonight. Another great thing about a stew is that it develops overnight and the flavours meld, so it tastes better a day later. The fat will congeal on the top and can easily be scraped off. Or if you like beef fat just leave it and it will melt back into the dish when you reheat. A few frozen peas can be added when reheating if you want to incorporate some greenery.
We also had some left over rooty stuff from Friday night (carrots, potatoes, onions) which I thought I could throw in.
I bought a pack of organic stewing steak from Tesco. There was 650g in the pack and I think it cost just over a fiver. That's the good thing about a stew, you can afford to use organic meat. Whilst I was in Tesco I also had a look at my "stock options" (excuse the poor pun). Tesco do their own Tesco Finest stock in a vacuum pack. This is deceptive - it looks like the real stuff, but a read of the ingredients list shows it's mostly yeast extract and salt - so really it's just a stock cube that they've already made up for you. But what I did happen accross was a similar product by Knorr. This is actually made from chicken bones and vegetables, so seemed promising, and I don't think it was too pricey (about £1 a pack of 450ml).
I'm not an expert on stews, but I am trying to leearn, so to help me along I was vaguely referring to a Rick Stein recipe for "Carbonnade a la boeuf". This is a belgian stew which uses equal parts of stock and beer for the liquid. I didn't have any decent beer so opted to use red wine instead.
The first thing to do was brown the meat. This isn't a task I particularly like. For a start, it needs to be done in batches - and so can take ages. Secondly grease flies all over the place, and evaporates from the pan, so you end up with a kitchen like the inside of a wok pan and a face like a chip shop worker.
There's a few rules to browning which basically dictate the quality of the stew (the rest is just a case of waiting) so this is the point to take care and attention:
Don't crowd the pan! I usually use a big saute pan, but still the pieces of meat are spaced such that I can only really brown six or seven pieces at once.
Get the pan hot hot hot! Think fires of hell and you are probably close. So therefore use a robust oil which won't burn. Groundnut oil is a good option.
Brown each piece on all sides - Tongues are a useful implement for this.
But the main point is brown means brown. You aren't trying to turn the meat from red to pale grey - the stewing process will do that. You are trying to make a nice brown crust to give the stew a real flavour.
Before browning I tossed the meat in plain flour and black pepper (no salt, this dries out the meat). I just put it in a bowl and used my hands (some people put in a freezer bag and shake - whatever works for you, though an unnecessary waste of plastic in my opinion). The flour does two things, it helps make a nice brown crust on the meat, buy more importantly - it thickens the sauce as it cooks.
After I finished browning I let the pan cool off whilst I chopped some onions. I used three medium sized onions (Rick Stein's recipe had even more than that - but then it didn't have much else). Then I gently cooked these in the same pan. This is great as you are essentially frying onions in a mixture of oil and beef dripping. So they go really satisfyingly brown and take up all the flavour from the beef. I cooked them gently for about 10 minutes (Rick said 15 but I didn't feel that was necessary).
After that I chucked in some roughly chopped unpeeled (but washed) carrots and potatoes. You can probably use any root vegetables you want at this point. I like big chunks of carrots in my stews, and by adding potatoes you carb it up and it become a meal in itself (a "one pot wonder").
The I poured over the whole pack of stock (450ml) and about the same amount of red wine until the meat was covered. For flavourings I added just over 1 teaspoon of mustard powder, some worcester sauce (which I've recently discovered is great with any red meat sauce) and a few bay leaves. I didn't add any fresh herbs - I don't think rosemary goes that well with a really punchy dish like this. I wasn't sure about thyme either. I considered adding paprika, but I wasn't really trying to make a goulash, so I left it. I added a bit of pepper, but no salt as the ready made stock had plenty.
After bringing to a simmer I popped it in the oven at 160 and left it a while.
I think I decided to retrieve at about 2 1/2 hours later and by this point it smelled very very good. The whole flat had a wonderful earthy rustic smell. Timing is not crucial, and that's the beauty of a stew. Though as a general rule I wouldn't leave it less than 2 hours, but probably the longer the better. So it's a good one if you have some rellies driving down to eat with you, and you don't know if they're going to get stuck in traffic on the M1.
The final result looked and smelled great - I tasted a bit of the meat just to check. As I was cooking it for the next day I used one of my "flash cooling" tricks. The quicker you cool a dish down, the better it keeps. It also reduces the chance of bacterial contamination (because it doesn't spend a lot of time at cosy temperatures allowing them to breed), which is important when your wife is pregnant. To do this I split it into two metal bowls (smaller portions cool quicker) and left in a bath of ice water in the sink.
It's now in the fridge waiting to be eaten tonight. Another great thing about a stew is that it develops overnight and the flavours meld, so it tastes better a day later. The fat will congeal on the top and can easily be scraped off. Or if you like beef fat just leave it and it will melt back into the dish when you reheat. A few frozen peas can be added when reheating if you want to incorporate some greenery.
posted by foodpete at 1:57 AM
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