Never have used corn starch for thickening stew. King Arthur all-purpose unbleached flour.
Seems the common denominator here is to brown the meat in oil or fat, little bits at a time, then make a base from the bits that are left, similar to a pan gravy. Sounds like this first step is pretty crucial to a decent stew.
Although it’s depasse’, I’m still a fan of the 70’s 80’s era “no peek” stew. It just seems to have everything I want in a stew… the long slow reduction in the oven, the hint of savory and tomato, aromatics, and extreme beefieness and luscious body. This is sort of the archetypical recipe-
NO PEEK STEW
4 lbs stew meat
8 carrots
8 potatoes
2 cups chopped celery
2 cups chopped onions
1 tsp pepper
2 tsp sugar
4 tbsp tapioca
2 cans tomato soup
2 cups water
Layer all ingredients, starting with stew meat. Sprinkle tapioca, pepper, and sugar over ingredients. Mix soup & water – pour over ingredients. DO NOT STIR!
Bake in covered roaster at 250 degrees for 5 hrs.
May add other veggies to your taste.
Submitted by: Jack Thompson
Mine is different, as I sometimes substitute tomato sauce and crushed tomatoes for the tomato soup, and I add bayleafs and sometimes beef broth and thyme.
Here is a thread about no peek stew.
Saw Ripert’s cooking show the other day and he made Boeuf au Carrots (Beff Bourginon with carrots). It looked pretty good if not excessively anal. A pretty in depth beef and red wine stew that he served with boiled carrots… the thing that surprised me about his particular technique for this stew was that he used a slurry of flour and water to thicken it, much as I might make gravy.
Ummm… Here’s Ripert’s Bouef au Carrots recipe… you “transfer” your own personality, seasonality, and ingredients to that technique of making stew and you can’t go wrong.
Oh it’s called “no peek” stew because you put it together in a large roasting pan… put the lid on and put it into the oven on low for several hours and never peek or disturb it.