Try something new that’s involved and complicated.
I needed to find a recipe that had red meat as a protein, you know, due to all the chicken we’ve been having, and in an attempt to find a beef roast recipe, landed on this recipe from SeriousEats.com.
All-American Beef Stew
Equipment
- Dutch oven
- Blender
Ingredients
- 950 ml low-sodium chicken stock (about 4 cups)
- 2.5 oz tomato paste (3 tablespoons)
- 3 oil- or salt-packed anchovy fillets rinsed
- 1 oz unflavored gelatin
- 15 ml soy sauce (1 tablespoon)
- 15 ml Worcestershire sauce (1 tablespoon)
- 30 ml Canola oil (2 tablespoons)
- 1.25 kg whole boneless beef chick roast (about 3 lbs) cut into 3 steaks
- Kosher salt
- freshly ground pepper
- 10 oz white button mushrooms quartered
- 10 oz carrots (about 4 medium) 2 left whole, 2 cut into bite sized pieces
- 8 oz pearl onions thawed if frozen, peeled, if fresh
- 10 oz whole yellow onion unpeeled, split in half
- 3 oz celery stalk two small, or one large stalk
- 3 medium cloves garlic unpeeled
- 8 oz red wine
- 0.75 oz all-purpose flour (2 tablespoons)
- 2 bay leaves
- 4 sprigs thyme
- 1 lb Yukon gold potatoes cubed
- 4 oz frozen peas
Instructions
- Note: Make sure you have prepped all of your ingredients before starting to put this meal together, especially cutting the chuck roast into the three steaks. And use a sharp knife!
- Combine stock, tomato paste, anchovies, gelatin, soy sauce, and Worcestershire sauce in a blender. Prepare to blend, but do not do so yet.
- Adjust oven rack to lowest position and preheat oven to 300 degrees F. In a large Dutch oven, heat oil over medium-high heat until shimmering. Season beef all over with salt and pepper, and add it to the Dutch oven (this may need to be done in batches). Brown well on both flat sides, about 5 minutes per side. Transfer beef to a large plate and set aside.
- Add mushrooms to Dutch oven and cook, stirring, until liquid is released and mushrooms begin to brown, 6-8 minutes, lowering heat if necessary to prevent scorching. Add diced carrots and pearl onions and cook, stirring, until well-browned on all sides. Season to taste with salt and pepper, then transfer to a bowl and set aside.
- Add halved yellow onion to Dutch oven, cut side down. Add whole carrots, celery and garlic. Cook, turning carrots, celery and garlic occasionally until all of the vegetables are well-browned, about 4 minutes.
- Add wine or sherry, scraping up the browned bits with a wooden spoon, then cooked until reduced by 3 minutes. Use this time to blend the contents of the blender on high until the mixture is smooth and homogenous.
- Add the broth mixture to the Dutch oven and bring it to a simmer. Remove from heat.
- Cut seared steaks into 1 ½ to 2 inch chunks and transfer to a large bowl. Toss with flour. Add beef and any juices accumulated on the plate to the Dutch oven along with bay leaves and thyme sprigs. Stir to combine and return to a simmer over medium heat. Transfer to the oven, cover with the lid partially open, and cook until beef is starting to become tender, about 1 ½ hours. (Liquid should hold a slow, steady simmer the entire time. Adjust temperature if necessary during cooking.)
- Remove stew from oven. Using tongs, fish out and discard whole carrots, celery stalk(s), thyme, bay leaves, onion and garlic. Add potatoes and reserved sautéed mushrooms, pearl onions, and carrots. Return to oven, and continue to cook, partially covered, unitl beef potatoes, and carrots are tender and broth has thickened, 45 minutes to 1 hour.
- Remove stew from oven. If necessary, place over a burner and simmer up to 15 minutes to reduce to desired consistency. Stir in peas. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve immediately or refrigerate overnight for up to 5 days, reheating to serve.
I’ve you’ve been keeping up, you know that we’ve been in a bit of a rut lately in terms of food. We’ve been trying to have at least one meal that can be reheated that includes a bit of red meat, and while meatballs and meatloaf have been good to us over the past few weeks, we needed a change.
I’d thought about something like stroganoff or pasta with Bolognese sauce, but dismissed them pretty quickly, as I’m trying to cut town on the amount of carbs I take in. I wanted to save those for when I’m really craving pasta.
Soup is awesome, but we’ve been having it so much, I thought I’d like to try something new. I went looking for a pot roast recipe, something different than one that I’ve used before, and of course, headed over to SeriousEats for help. Kenji, one of the original editors of the website, had a recipe that came up almost first on the search. Unfortunately, it wasn’t for pot roast, it was for beef stew. The more I read it the more I got excited about trying something new, something that would take some time to complete.
I think the weirdest part of the recipe is the use of anchovies. I’m no expert – you’ll have to go to the original write up to find out why they’re included – but I followed the recipe to a T, and holy cow is it yummy! MM’s vote was that the broth is the star of the show, and he’s been eating leftovers most of the week as a result. I thought it was good as well, and though I don’t enjoy whole pearl onions in things (not the biggest fan of onions in the first place), they were overpowered by the broth, beef and potatoes.
I’ll want to make this again, see if I can be more efficient, but I don’t know that I’d change much about it. Yum!