That’s where I got my recipe. I usually note the source when I cut and paste to my personal cookbook, but guess I missed it. Thanks.
I often put a couple of whole star anise into a beef stew - it gives it a really rich flavor. Just be sure to fish them out before serving.
I agree with the others who have recommended browning the meat. It will make a huge difference in taste.
I agree with my friend Biggirl here. Emeril Legasse says: “If you wouln’t drink the wine, why would you put it in your food?” Cooking wines are very often lesser vintages and salted.
Today is 72 degrees. Tomorrow is 62. Then after that the highs are about 55 at best. That is good news because fall is stew season, and I can’t wait to make my first beef stew of the cold season.
And I am going to be making a lot of beef stew. I picked up a 3.5 pound English roast last weekend, planning to bisect it for 2 stew sessions before freezing. Unfortunately I forgot that part, it is now frozen in a solid mass. So I’ll be thawing it and useing it all at once.
Although I suppose I could get out the Sawz-all ;). I wonder if a wood, metal, or masonry blade is best for frozen beef, My guess would be metal.
I haven’t tried it for beef stew but marjoram really helped my soup game. Split pea, in particular. Thyme, bay, and rosemary all go nicely in a stew but not too much of any of it. Save the heavy-handedness for the garlic.
Yea, they’re about six bucks a pound here and so much bone.
heavily salted, at that. makes them undrinkable enough to avoid liquor taxes.
And blue laws that require a liquor license to sell real wine at the grocery store in some places.
That’s the biggie for me. I mean, you don’t need a $10 or $20 bottle of wine. Two buck chuck or Bigfoot or Yellow Tail is fine (and the latter two usually go for around $5, but I’ve seen them at 4 for $10 at my local grocery store when they want to clear it out.) It doesn’t have to be a fancy wine or anything like that. But cooking wine is just horrendous.
Cloves are a nice complement to beef.
I do my browning of cubes in a wok with constant movement. Fast and gets all the sides without having to turn each cube 5 times.
I like to use Julia Child’s beef bourguignon recipe when I’m making beef stew at home. Just chop the beef into bite-size chunks as opposed to the larger chunks in a traditional bourguignon, and skip the final step of cooking down the sauce in favor of stirring in the mushrooms and onions and letting it heat through, and you’re good to go.
If the stew still needs a little something at the end, rather than bullion cubes, some combination of soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and/or ground porcini mushrooms will add that depth of flavor you might be missing. To me, a good beef stew is all about umami, and these are good sources for it.
But, definitely brown the meat before putting it in the crockpot, and I would get some browning on the mirepoix as well (yum…caramelized sugars). Maybe add some tomato paste just when the veggies are done. Deglaze the pan you used to brown the meat and aromatics and add that to the crockpot, so all that brown goodness gets into your stew. Tons of flavor there.
I thought I would return to share the results.
I tried pulykamell’s Jamaican crock pot recipe. I had odd green and white, farm fresh carrots that the checker at the store at first mistook for turnips. I rough-cut things, leaving the taters, beef cubes and tomato slices large in an attempt to sort of stave off the mushiness effect of crock pot cooking. I added 4 oz of alba clam mushrooms in the last 10 minutes of cooking and thought it was a fine addition. I could not find scotch bonnet pepper sauce and so I used habanero sauce instead, something like 1-2 teaspoons, I just eyeballed it from the bottle. The stew did not come out terrible hot because of this, but did have a distinct background heat that never rose to a threatening level, literally “spice for beef stew”, and so I have to declare the whole attempt a success.
It was tasty and hearty. I loved working with the smoked paprika- it made the gravy a rich, appetizing reddish brown. I am going to play with this spice going forward. There was no celery, I thought I had leftovers but did not, alas. Seasoned with high end garlic salt and gobbled up the whole pot in a week.
Then I tried Chefguy’s recipe (does this recipe have a name?). Now I know what all the dutch oven aficionados are talking about (yes, I just acquired my first one). It took the stew to a whole new level.
I have never made a dish in which I stewed anything in stock and veggies for 90 minutes, then tossed out the stewed veggies to be replaced with fresh, previously browned veggies. It came across as quite the secret to me. I used a $10 Bordeaux for the wine, and a too-large portion of quartered white mushrooms. Simmering everything by itself, then re-introducing things into the juice-infused stock is a great idea. The gravy came out thick and savory and aromatic. Maybe too thick, I don’t have a blender but rather a Ninja, which holds Exactly 32 oz, and so I threw out 4 or 5 tbsp of chicken stock to accommodate all the other ingredients in one run rather than taking the time to cut everything in half and blend it twice. Rookie shortcut.
The next project may be to incorporate red bell peppers and habanero sauce into the conventionally seasoned dutch oven recipe. I will try some of the other seasonings mentioned in this thread, too. Spicy or savory? How about both? 