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I worked at the market yesterday, and I think that thirty hours later I am just starting to thaw. It never quite got above 35 degrees, and while all the happy tourists lucked out with a sunny crisp day for looking at their precious leaves, that is just too damned cold to stand in one place for five hours handling wet salad. But it was the market, and even a frozen farmer’s market is better than no market at all.
I was working with a woman yesterday who I know just a bit. She is very accomplished in the realm of some great things, but is also very easy to talk to- an excellent combination of attributes, I think. So, there we are, talking about celeriac as we wait for the eager vegetable buyers to arrive, and she says, “What would I do with celeriac?”
And you know I like these kind of questions.
“Well,” I began, trying not to let my voice get high as it does when I answer recipe queries. “Any kind of soup or stew. Or roast it up. But if you really want to make it shine, it has got to be beef stew.”
“Oh,” she sighed. “I wish I was the kind of person who makes beef stew.”
Now, I have to say that with the things this woman is creating in her life, if she is at work too late in the day to make a pot of beef stew, I forgive her entirely. In fact, I’ll bring her some of mine.
But this got me thinking. For most people, there are things that we make and the things that we don’t. Usually this has something to do with what our mothers made, but sometimes it’s more random- a friend gave you a recipe for baked mac and cheese in college, you made it, and now you’re someone who makes baked mac and cheese. So often I think that those things that you don’t make have a bit of mystical allure, and they usually seem harder than they really are. (Unless the thing that you don’t make is croissants, and then it really is that hard). And this might just be where the cooking rut occurs.
Oh, the joy of realizing how attainable one of those unattainable dinners really is. And before you know it, there are so many things to cook that it might even be hard to nail it down.
Are you someone who makes beef stew? Or do you think you might like to be?
We have to go back to my frozen market for a moment. I only bring you back there so that you can fully experience the chill in my bones, and so that you can know that this story really has a happy ending, and that there was left over beef stew waiting for me when I got home. A big bowl over noodles, a bitter arugula salad, and couch where I fell fast asleep until Joey and the girls came home from their Saturday capers.
Read on for the recipe.
A Beef Stew Formula
I know, formula? Here I am promising to make a beef stew maker out of you, and I give you a formula instead of a recipe? But beef stew is like that- what you’ve got in your fridge will work out for you. As long as you brown your beef, it will all be okay
(for four people plus a bit leftover, maybe)
2 lbs stew beef
1 cup flour (I have to leave this out now due to the wheat free girl, but if you can, use it)
2 Tablespoons paprika
1 Tablespoon salt
lots of fresh ground pepper
several glugs of olive oil
about 2 cups of liquid- this can be beer, red wine, beef broth, chicken broth, or in a pinch, water
then there are the vegetables… if you’ve got them, you’d want to start with:
2-3 carrots, peels and cut into chunks
2 ribs celery, sliced
1 large onion cut into boats (are you with me here? I’m not sure of the terms, but cut your onion in half and then into long boat shaped strips)
3 potatoes, peeled and cup into bite sized chunks
or if life is more exciting where you are:
1/2 celeriac root, peeled and cut into chunks
2 kohlrabi bulbs, peeled and cut into chunks
(if you’re going for the exciting vegetables, sub them in for the potato or some portion of the potato)
And most importantly, 1 bay leaf
Other optional elements would be soy sauce, tomato paste, and cloves. (a dash of soy sauce, a few tablespoons of tomato paste, 5-7 cloves)
And of course parsley is okay if you fly that way.
So how do you put all of this together? Well, your going to need an afternoon when you’re around, but doing something else. After about 1/2 hour of prep time, this stuff just cooks itself.
Beef stew is very forgiving. But this is the important part. Are you skimming this post? Okay then, I’ll say it again. THIS IS THE IMPORTANT PART.
- You must wash, and DRY your stew meat.
- You must combine your flour, paprika, salt and pepper in a bowl.
- You must heat the olive oil in a large pot until it is hot.
- You must dip each DRY (did I say dry?) piece of meat into the flour mixture.
- You must drop it into the pot, and let it brown on all sides. This will take turning on your part. You can do several pieces at a time, but do not crowd the pan. When the meat is brown on all sides and you need space to put more meat in, take it out of the pot and put it on a plate. When you have browned all of the meat, return it to the pot.
That was the important part. If you’re still with me, you’re golden. Are you still with me?
I hope all of your vegetables are chopped. If not, pause for chopping. Chopped? Okay.
Now add your liquid. Keep the heat at medium high. Bring it to a mellow boil. Scrape the brown stuff off the bottom of the pot.
Add your vegetables. The meat and vegetables should be partially submerged in liquid. Add more liquid if your instinct tells you to (yes you have instinct- you are a person who makes beef stew!)
Bring back up to a mellow boil. Add the bay leaf. Cover, lower the heat and go do something else. Check back in every so often, stirring, cooing, adding liquid, whatever.
Cook at least an hour, but maybe three- that’s okay too. Taste it when it’s done, flavor if there is a need.
And what do you pour this luscious thing over? I’m partial to egg noodles, but cous cous is great too. Rice will work, as will a good loaf of bread. Or you can just eat it on its own. From the pot.
11 Comments
“I wish I was the kind of person who makes beef stew.”
Oh, wow — this is a woman who needs to be invited for coffee/tea, a little bit of a schnecken and some hand-holding. “Sweetheart, there is no such a thing as a ‘not a beef stew person’.”
I’m not quite as loving as you are with the ‘dipping each piece in the flour’ thingy – I throw all my flour, paprika, pepper, etc. into a bag (whatever you got – when you are done, you’ll need to either wash it out or throw it away), throw the pieces of meat into it and shake that baby like James Bond’s martini until everything is coated. Anything that is not sticking to the meat can be added to the juice and sauce. And, oh, just a reminder: God made slow cookers so that we can make beef (and anything else meatlike) stew. Just a thought.
It’s true the bag will do the job as well… I know Laurie Colwin was a big advocate of paper bag beef stew. And I must admit, I’ve never gotten my slow cooker to match the pot’s performance- I think it must be something about the big cast iron pot I use. I reserve the slow cooker for oatmeal, but I’m happy to hear there is a cooker out there that will do a good stew.
I’m with you Toby. I also throw the stew meat in a bag with the flour (I usually add the salt and pepper later), shake it all up then brown it in my iron skillet.
After the carrots, celery, onions, and potatoes, I add a small can of green beans, corn, peas, and mushroom bits and stems and one can of diced tomatoes. Oh and minced garlic as well as the salt and pepper.
Sometimes all into the crock pot but other times, like this weekend, into a large pot on the stove. And the final ingredient was two cans of beer.
One can for the pot..and one can for you?
If I had used the crock-pot, that might have worked but since I did it stove top, it took both cans for the stew itself. Most of the first can boiled off before everything was done so added the second can and when it was all nice and thick as a gravy, all the meat was falling apart and blended together.
I make lots of soup, with lots of root vegetables every week, but I don’t make beef stew, even though I love it, because I, too, must avoid wheat.
How do you brown the beef, if you’re not using flour? Just naked from drying? Or do you use something else to coat it?
When making soup, besides the usual onions, celery, carrots and potatoes, I also add rutabagas, turnips, and parsnips (when I can find them). Sometimes parsley and/or dill, a can of tomatoes, water, some vegetable stock.
Karen – I brown my beef naked sometimes and have not had any complaints yet. Don’t give up on beef stew just because you can’t have wheat — that is just a thickening agent anyway. Are there any thickening agents that don’t bother you? Arrowroot? Potato flour?
Thanks, Toby! I may try one of those, or maybe just without, at first, to see if adding extra potato might be enough.
My daughter is actually gluten free, so I’ve started to leave out the flour. I combine salt, paprika, and pepper, and that gives it enough of a coating. Although you don’t need the flour to get the meat brown, I find that the coating process helps the beef to stay more tender as it browns, but the mixture without the flour works okay for me.
Use rice flour.
My soup’s on, but it has to simmer for awhile for all of the root vegetables to be tender enough. No parsnips this time, but my produce person said they would probably have some next week.