Category Archives: Beef
The Beef Stew Trials
I want to like beef stew, I really do. I try different recipes, all different variations, and more often than not, I’m underwhelmed. With another cold winter ahead, it seems like I should figure out how to make a beef stew I enjoy.
Did I mention that we bought a winter CSA share? Because it was all storage vegetables, it was a one-time pickup. In early December, we picked up bags and bags of onions, shallots, garlic, potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnips, rutabagas, beets, carrots, parsnips, celery root, and (new to me) black radishes.
I thought hard about what I do and don’t like about stew. For one thing, the vegetables in most stews are just carrots and potatoes, and I realize I don’t like potatoes that have stewed for a long time. I also don’t usually like stews that are just meaty soups with a thin soupy broth.
I came up with a stew with lots of root vegetables (no potatoes) and a lovely thick gravy. Much to my surprise, I really enjoyed it. The meat was perfectly tender, and the meat-to-vegetable ratio was exactly the way I like it. Howard liked it too.
Don’t We Clean Up Well?
I served the stew over the celery root puree I made for French Fridays. The texture of the creamy puree complemented the chunky stew in every bite. I might be sold on stew this time. There’s plenty of winter ahead and lots of root vegetables in the fridge, so I’ll definitely be trying this again.
Beef Stew
Adapted from The Commonsense Kitchen
Serves 8
1¾ lbs beef stew meat, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 Tbsp olive oil
Kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper
Pinch of cloves
1 cup fruity red wine
3 cups chicken stock
1 bay leaf
Leaves of 2 sprigs fresh thyme, chopped
3 cloves garlic
1 large onion, diced
1 stalk celery, diced
5 carrots, peeled and sliced into 1-inch slices
2 turnips, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
2 parsnips, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
2 black radishes, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks (or 2 more turnips or parsnips)
1 small celery root, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
¾ cup cold wter
1/3 cup flour
Preheat the oven to 300F.
Dry the meat with paper towels. Heat a large skillet over medium-high. In a large bowl, toss the meat with 1½ teaspoons kosher salt, ½ teaspoon freshly ground pepper, and the cloves. Heat 1½ tablespoons of olive oil in the skillet. In two batches, brown the beef on all sides. Add each batch to a large Dutch oven as it finishes browning. Add more oil, if needed.
Add the wine, stock, bay leaf, and thyme to the Dutch oven with the browned beef. Bring it to a simmer (not a boil). Taste for seasoning. Cover the Dutch oven and place in to the oven. Cook for 30 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 250F and cook for another hour.
About 15 minutes before the hour is up, in a skillet over medium heat, add another 1½ tablespoons olive oil. Gently cook the onions, garlic, celery, and carrots sprinkled with salt, stirring frequently, until they start to soften, but not brown (about 5 minutes). Add the remaining vegetables and another sprinkle of salt, and cook another 5 minutes, stirring frequently.
Place the cold water and flour in a jar. Shake well until it is well-combined.
Add the slurry along with the vegetables to the Dutch oven. Stir everything together, and replace the pot in the oven. Cook for another 40 minutes. The gravy will thicken as the vegetables cook through. Taste and adjust seasoning, as needed.
Serve over celery root puree or another accompaniment of your choice.
ffwd: beef daube with carrots and elbow macaroni
I’m sure that each time I make a beef stewy thing I mention that it’s not my favorite sort of meal. I’ve never been able to sort out whether it’s the long-cooked vegetables or the texture of the meat. So, I was ambivalent when I set out to make this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe for Beef Daube with Carrots and Elbow Macaroni.
The recipe ideally calls for beef cheeks. I still have a chest freezer half-filled with the hind quarter of a cow that we purchased last fall from my sister’s father-in-law who raised it. At the time, we requested the beef cheeks, even though they are obviously from the other end of the animal, thinking others might not want this less familiar meat. Unfortunately, we didn’t get it.
As an alternative, the recipe suggests using chuck roast. Chuck roast is the shoulder of the cow, again from the wrong end of what we have. It seemed like I should use something I had rather than going to the store to buy more beef. I looked up other alternative cuts that are good for braising and so I used a round roast which is part of the hind quarter. Otherwise, I stuck to the recipe with the addition of two parsnips that were sitting in my vegetable drawer.
The meat smelled great as it browned, though it did make a big mess of the stovetop in spite of the splatter guard. The vegetables plus some bacon were softened before making a gravy with the addition of some flour, water, beef broth and red wine. The meat was added back in and the pot sealed up with foil, then it braised in a slow oven for nearly two hours, filling the kitchen with a wonderful aroma.
Shortly before the daube was done, I cooked some elbow macaroni and grated some bittersweet chocolate. The chocolate was stirred into the pot and allowed to simmer, stovetop, for a few minutes before stirring in the nearly cooked pasta.
I loved the flavors in this stew. The carrots and parsnips made the gravy sweet and the chocolate added extra complexity. I also liked how the elbows absorbed the delicious sauce. The only negative is that I definitely chose the wrong cut of meat to substitute. The round was a bit tough which took away from the end result. I think if the meat were more meltingly tender, I would have loved it. All isn’t lost as I would definitely try this again with the recommended chuck or cheeks. I’m sure that would fix the issue I caused. Howard, who is more of a beef stew person than I am, had the same problem with the meat, but thought the elbows added a fun touch to the meal.
I liked the wine I added to the pot: Toasted Head Untamed Red, which included the suggested Syrah grapes along with Zinfandel and Petite Syrah. There was enough left in the bottle for two glasses to drink along with the meal. Perfect!
We don’t’ share the recipes made in this cooking group, but I encourage you to find the recipe in Dorie Greenspan’s book Around My French Table.
To see how other bloggers’ daubes came out, and whether they found cheeks or not, check out their links here.
A Plateful of Happiness 