One of my guilty pleasures is this canned glop that reminds me of my childhood.
It’s certainly not the best stew I’ve had, but it’s very distinctive, and I wonder how they make it. The meat is incredibly tender, without a hint of chewy gristle or connective tissue. The potatoes are soft, but still hold their shape well and have a slight bite to them. The carrots are similar to the potatoes, but softer. And the broth/sauce is very thick and rich. It’s also very salty, and a homemade version could be a little less so.
Is it just a matter of cooking the hell out of it?
To my knowledge…pretty much. The canning process itself will aid in the tenderization of the meats and veggies.
I still keep a can or two in the pantry for when the wife’s away and I can’t be arsed to actually cook. Hit it with some hot sauce and maybe a dollop of BBQ sauce and you have something to get you by while watching a ballgame.
A neighbor of mine in Milwaukee ate Dinty Moore Beef Stew about once a day. He would put a couple of slices of white bread in a bowl and dump the stew over the top. Microwave till hot and soggy. We gave him some good natured ribbing about it (not like any of us poor students were eating steak & flounder) but he clearly loved it.
Indeed, especially if you discard the potatoes. There are a number of Polish groceries and delis near me that make the most delicious & inexpensive soups. I justify eating the ones without pasta since the potato chunks are so easy to eat around.
Apparently they’ve changed the recipe. Now it is getting across the board shitty reviews. Really shitty reviews. Like “I’ll never eat this shit again” reviews.
Good camping fare. Actually, I think Kroger’s brand is better. We got a couple stashed in our cupboard. And a couple cans of corned beef hash. Chili? Ya, got that too; coupla different kinds.
I keep a couple cans of Dinty Moore. They reduced the fat several years ago. It’s not as tasty.
Remember when you’d open the can and there was a quarter inch of fat on top? That was the flavor!!! They even had the greasy thumbprint printed on the lid. It’s gone now. https://goo.gl/images/3t4Qzn
We heat the stew in the oven until it’s hot. Then add biscuits on top of the stew and let them bake.
There’s an ancient American expat in Thailand, Bernard Trink, still alive and kicking in his 80s. Been in Thailand I think since the 1950s. He used to have a weekly column in a couple of different papers and in it would frequently complain about the price or sporadic absence of Dinty Moore beef stew in the Western supermarkets. His Dinty Moore rants are well known to long-time expat residents. Ah, memories.
In terms of canned beef stew, I found Nalley Big Chunk Stew superior to Dinty Moore’s. Better meat, wider variety of vegatables, and (of course) bigger chunks of both. When I was in law school, I used to get the microwavable containers for a quick lunch or dinner when I had a night class. I don’t know if they’re still as good or if they’ve changed the recipe since I haven’t had any in over 20 years.
I thrived on Dinty Moore as a teenager, and it was also great camping food because it comes in it’s own cooking pot! I’m sad to hear that it has gotten worse.
I make a lot of beef stew in the winter and I’ve found that my electric pressure cooker gives very Dinty-esque qualities to the stew. Very tender meat but the vegetable still have some body to them.
Husband eats it now and then, has never grown weary of Dinty Moore in 50 some years. (I like the smell, takes me back to the past, and if I was starving to death, I would find it tasty myself.) He actually knows how to microwave the little single serving container! But he finds it very salty. So much processed food is so, so salty. I try to buy reduced salt chips and crackers since he eats so much of them, also…Besides the Dinty Moore microwavables, there seem to be a hundred newer things to eat - spaghetti, bbq pork, breakfast type things, chicken alfredo - I don’t know how good those are, they seem to be made for bachelors, kids, or for emergency food.
One thing that seems to be a trend is they (canned food peeps) no longer use stew meat, instead using “reprocessed” or “chunked and formed” scraps of beef that will never cook down. Pretty sad, since stew meat is about as cheap as it gets in the first place, but is a real nice meal when tenderized by slow and low cooking. Bahstids.
Hormel Chili was “New and Improved!” in 1997, as I recall. It used to have a layer of fat when the can was opened.
On the topic of Hormel Chili, I used to love that stuff. (15 oz. can with diced chunks of chedder thrown in! I used to eat that once/week.)
I don’t know if the recipe was changed in the last three years, or if my taste buds has changed. But now, it tastes like pet food to me.
Last night I tried the Hormel Homestyle Chili, which still tastes ok. But the broth is so thin! I like thicker broth. Is there a way to thicken the broth? Do I add flour to it, or something?