Beef Stew - Our New Go-To

Dawn breaks over Almost Heaven South on a cold January Day.

Back in early November, we decided to perform a meals-on-wheels function for a friend in need and for this week we chose beef stew.  We generally don’t use a recipe for this dish, but for this time, we decided to give one a try and see how it compared to our usual.  We picked a recipe from reliable TasteOf Home and made a couple of adjustments based on other recipes plus doubled it (as shown below) for our meat amount and a desire to have leftovers.  Please click on the link for the original recipe and a video.  

The Best Beef Stew – Lightly adapted from Taste of Home

Makes 12 servings

Ingredients:

½ lb. Bacon (our addition)

3 pounds beef sirloin tip roast, trimmed & cut into 1” pieces

S&P to taste

1 cup flour for dredging

1 teaspoon smoked paprika

Vegetable oil as needed

5 tablespoons tomato paste

4 teaspoons herbs de Provence

4 garlic cloves, minced

2-4 cups dry red wine (we used two)

4 cups beef broth

1 teaspoons dried rosemary

1 T. Worcestershire

4 bay leaves

6 cups cubed peeled potatoes

1½ cups coarsely chopped onions

1 bag frozen pearl onions

4 cups sliced carrots

4 tablespoons cold water

2 tablespoons cornstarch

2 cup frozen peas

Directions:

1. In a Dutch oven or soup pot, brown the bacon until crisp and remove to a bowl - leave the bacon fat.
2. Lay the cubed meat in a single layer on a cutting board and season with S&P.

3. In bag, combine the flour and paprika. Add beef, a pan full at a time, and shake to coat.

4. Add the meat to the pan in batches (don’t overcrowd), brown on at least two sides, and remove to a bowl.  Add more oil as needed.

5. When the meat is all removed from the pan, add the tomato paste, herbes de Provence and garlic; cook until fragrant and color starts to darken slightly.

6. Slowly add the wine and deglaze the pan, scraping up all of the fond from the pan bottom and cook until mixture just comes to a boil (it's easier to do this with the meat removed).  Reduce heat and simmer until reduced by one fourth (or half for 2 cups of wine).

7. Stir in broth, the rosemary, worstershire, bay leaves, bacon, and beef. Bring to a boil reduce heat; cover and simmer until meat is almost tender, about 1-1/2 hours.  Adjust seasonings.

8. Add potatoes, onions and carrots. Cover; simmer until meat and vegetables are tender, about 30 minutes longer.  Discard bay leaves. Adjust seasonings.

9. In a small bowl, combine water and cornstarch. Stir into stew. Bring to a boil; add frozen peas. Cook, stirring, until thickened, about 5 minutes. 

This is the bowl for our friends which we sided with some biscuits – we’re in the South you know.

Since we doubled the recipe, we had plenty for Bev to eat (I was still on a crash diet) and she thought it was very good and better than our normal so this will be the new go-to beef stew recipe.  We served it a couple of days later to company and as usual it was even better after the flavors married in the fridge.

My girls have a very pretty amaryllis that is blooming.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them and the blue words are links.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry  

1/16/20 event date