Beef Stew Basics
Beef Stew Basics
Course: Recipes, MainI am slightly addicted to food shows. The latest being ‘Cooked’ by Michael Pollan. It’s clever, insightful and broad. Pollan might be a bit self-righteous, but on most things he’s right. On one of the episodes – Water – he talked about how water becomes the element that brings together meat – particularly cuts of meat that aren’t so tender – vegetables and herbs to make thick, unctuous stews, and quite how magic that is.
The bit I loved was also how simple he made it seem to make a good stew, so this weekend I was inspired to give it a go. What’s important:
INGREDIENTS
Some meat – I went for beef dice and some leftover sirloin that needed using up.
A Mirepoix – this is a mix of finely diced onion, carrot, celery and perhaps garlic. I used all of these, and actually I pulse in my magimix to make sure they are super fine.
A base oil – start with butter, which you’ll fry your mirepoix in.
More meat – I added bacon, for depth of flavour, saltiness and smokeyness.
Mushrooms – can add an earthiness to the stew.
Herbs – thyme is my fave – it’s got such a nice flavour, but isn’t too overpowering.
Good red wine – not 100% necessary, but to me an essential!! I used a bottle.
Stock – I had some really good beef bone broth in the freezer luckily but otherwise use what you have.
A little flour to put the beef in before you add it to the stew.
Time – let the stew stew baby! It needs time for the flavours to meet, greet, and start dancing together.
Heat – well, it isn’t a party without some heat on the dancefloor, so keep it low and slow for the ultimate result.
Directions
- Start by putting a little oil in the Le Creuset or another large heavy based pan and add the mirepoix. Allow it to soften gently for about ten minutes.
- When they’re all soft, start frying the bacon in a separate pan. Meanwhile, turn up the heat on the mirepoix, which will sweeten it slightly.Â
- Once the bacon is fried, add to the veg. Then add mushrooms into the frying pan and fry them off before adding to the mirepoix pan.
- Next, put the beef in a bag with a couple of tablespoons of flour and shake it up. Add the beef to the frying pan where the mushrooms were, and brown off.Â
- Â Then transfer to the mirepoix saucepan. Pour the wine into the frying pan and deglaze before putting everything into the main pot together with the thyme, and stock.
- Turn the heat down low and let it simmer away for a couple of hours.
Enjoy with softly mashed potatoes and steamed greens.
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