Beef Stew


 Ingredients:

  • 2 tbsp veg oil
  • 1/2 cup flour
  • 1 lb stewing beef
  • 1 onion
  • 4 potatoes
  • 3 carrots
  • 1/4 head cabbage
  • 5 cups beef stock (1 tetra pack)
  • 1 & 1/2 tbsp rosemary
  • 1 & 1/2 tbsp thyme
  • 1 tbsp salt
  • 1/2 tbsp black pepper
  • 1/4 cup cornstarch
  • 1/4 cup cold water
Instructions:

  1. Chop 1 onion into slices, peel 4 potatoes and 3 carrots and chop them into rounds, chop 1/4 head cabbage into strips. Place potatoes, carrots, and cabbage in large saucepan and set aside
  2. Put 2 tbsp veg oil into frying pan and put on medium heat
  3. Put 1/2 cup flour into bowl
  4. Roll stewing beef in flour and put into heated pan, along with chopped onion
  5. Turn beef over until browned on all sides, but make sure not to cook it through
  6. Once beef has been browned and onion is translucent, put into saucepan with the other ingredients
  7. Add 5 cups/1 tetra pack beef broth
  8. Add 1 1/2 tbsp thyme, 1 1/2 tbsp rosemary, 1 tbsp salt, 1/2 tbsp black pepper
  9. Simmer on low for 1 hour
  10. 5 min before finished, in a separate bowl, combine 1/4 cup cornstarch and 1/4 cup cold water, whisk together with a spoon until combined
  11. Add cornstarch slurry to stew, mix to combine, and let simmer 5 min before serving
Yield: Enough for two adults with a lot of leftovers

Source: Trial and error

Description:

When I first got my slow cooker, I had a lot of fun throwing things into it and figuring out what worked. A standard pot of food would be a pork shoulder, potatoes, cabbage, onion, carrots, salt and pepper, and 1/2 a cup of broth. I'd bring it into work and people would tell me I made stew. I'd say, "No, it's just a bunch of meat and vegetables."

Well, I made this for Lee-Anne a few times, and "stew" became a signature dish of mine. However, because it was expected to be this thing I never modeled it after, I started getting feedback such as add more liquid, experiment with spices, assume it used beef etc. Eventually it transformed into the dish it was associated with.

This recipe just uses a saucepan instead of the slow cooker. When it became more intricate, it lost some of the appeal of being a dish that could get thrown into a slow cooker and left alone, and I stopped planning ahead as much.

I use the beer as a way of controlling the volume of the stew as much as anything. You can use what you like. I used Belgian Moon, which is sweet with a bit of citrus flavour. You want something on the sweeter side. One time I only had Boneshaker, which is a bitter IPA, and I had to eat most of the pot because Lee-Anne couldn't be compelled to eat.

(Edit: I now just use a full tetra pack of beef broth and omit the beer. I kept being left with less-than-half-full tetra packs that would go bad in the fridge, and you wind up with about the same volume either way)

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