Beef Stew Recipe

Beef stew is a typical countryside meal, almost all over Europe and some countries of North American and Asia too. In short, anywhere the cold gets tough, beef stew does the trick.

This recipe for beef stew calls for a whole lot of winter veggies with a leg or shoulder of beef. Alternately, stewing beef can be used. It generally consists of tougher muscles that are great on flavor. The vegetables used in beef stew are almost always the root varieties, which do not completely disappear in the stew since beef takes so long to cook - potatoes, carrots, parsley to name a few.

Another thing is, in order to make such a long - cooking dish; it makes a lot of sense to get all the ingredients together before starting on the actual cooking. This not only saves time later on but also prevents culinary mishaps like too much browned potatoes (what some would call burned), or overcooked meats.

To make this classic Beef Stew, the ingredients are:
2 tbsp olive oil
1 kg boneless beef chuck, cut into 1-inch cubes
salt & pepper, to taste
1 large onion, chopped
3 bay leaves
1 teaspoon ground mustard
½ tsp ground black pepper
1 cup dry red wine
2 tsp sugar
2 leeks, chopped and well rinsed
4 carrots, peeled and cubed
2 turnips, peeled and cubed
2 teaspoons of sugar
2 1/2 cups of beef stock
2 tablespoons of tomato puree
8 potatoes, quartered
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, chopped
1 cup of sliced mushrooms
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 of fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped

Procedure:
Sauté the beef in a big pan until all sides are browned. Don't fill the pan too much or it will steam and not brown properly, so cook it in batches if necessary. Season with a little salt and pepper. When finished, transfer to your large pot.

In the sauté pan put in the onions, leeks, carrots, and turnips and bay leaf, add sugar and cook over medium high heat for approximately 8 minutes. Remove the vegetables and reserve in a large bowl. Again add the butter to the sauté pan and sauté the mushrooms over medium high heat for approximately 10 minutes. Reserve along with the other vegetables.

Now, in the pan, add the beef stock, rosemary, ground mustard, red wine, black pepper and tomato puree. Cook for a couple of minutes and add to the pot with the meat. Add the potatoes and garlic to the meat, and cooking liquid. Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer for 45 minutes. Add the reserved vegetables, half the chopped parsley and continue cooking for approximately 45 minutes or more, until the meat is tender.

To make a thickened stew, add a cup of the almost done broth to three tablespoons of flour and whisk to a paste. Add this paste to the cooking pot and continue heating for another 15 minutes or until thick.

Use the remaining parsley for garnish.

The stew goes very well with French bread and a bottle of Burgundy wine especially on one of those cold nights.