Rustic Stew
When the weather is cool, it’s raining too hard to go outside, it’s time for comfort foods. One of my favorites is gold old beef stew!
I like rustic stews; simple, classic, country foods that are made a bit better than just plain old stew. It starts with the ingredients:
- 3-4 lbs of choice chuck, trimmed and cut into 1-1 1/2 inch cubes
- 3 large sweet onions, peeled and quartered
- 1 1/2 lbs yellow fingerling potatoes, left whole unless more than 2 inches across
- 1 1/2 lbs red fingerling potatoes, again left whole unless more than 2 inches across
- 1 lb. button mushrooms
- 12 medium sized carrots, cut into 1 1/2 inch lengths
- 1 bottle (750 ml) dry red wine
- Fresh thyme and marjoram, destemmed.
After the ingredients, it’s all about what to do when. One of the most important parts of building a stew is to ensure that the meat is well seared. Adding a tablespoon of oil to a hot cast iron Dutch oven is a start, then add the cubed meat. To make sure things sear, only a handful of meat should be added at a time, letting it sear then removing it from the pan to make room for more. Once all the meat is seared, the onions and carrots are added to also sear them. All this searing creates a Maillard reaction, which allows the sugars to caramelize. What this means is simple - Flavor!
Once the carrots and onions are done, the meat is added back to the Dutch oven, along with the potatoes and mushrooms, with the bottle of wine poured over everything, and the herbs added at the end. Salt and pepper should be added to taste. The liquid is brought to a boil, then the stew should simmer for 1 1/2 hours, or until the meat and veggies are tender.
Serve with fresh baked bread and butter, and let the comfort food do its job.
