Beef Vegetable Stew Recipe - Tasty Thursday - The Spring Mount 6 Pack (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to good beef stew? ›

Using the right type of beef, searing the meat before cooking, deglazing the pan, cooking for several hours, and using plenty of salt all make a huge difference in the flavor of your beef stew.

Vegetables that work well in a beef stew include Hardroots vegetable, carrots, potatoes, onions, celery, and parsnips. These vegetables add flavor and texture to the stew while complementing the richness of the beef. You can also consider adding mushrooms, turnips, or peas for variety.

There are flavors in tomatoes that are alcohol-soluble, so adding red wine along with tomato paste also helps to enhance beef stew." Laurence has a few other tricks I've borrowed to create the best beef stew, including adding Worcestershire, which gets a serious umami punch from anchovies.

Add vinegar when putting the meat in the pot after browning (Maillard reaction). Add spices at this time. Tough stew meat will take a couple of hours to get tender, and the vinegar helps this happen as well as add special flavor.

If you think about it, vinegar is really a flavor-enhancer (umami). That's why it is so often used in cooking, sauces, and salad dressings. The same is true with soups.

After about 1 1/2 hours of cooking, add roasted veggies and potatoes to the pot and finish cooking. Remove thyme and rosemary bundle and bay leaves, discard.

Tomato paste adds crucial flavor and body to the stew meat when cooked with herbs, garlic and wine. If you don't have any on hand, try one of these tomato paste substitutes.

While certain vegetables can work just fine added directly to simmering soups and stews (say, carrots and celery), other vegetables (onions, garlic, and the like) will almost always need at least a brief sweat in a fat-based liquid before adding the remaining ingredients.

Add spices such as turmeric, coriander and cumin at the early stage of cooking, when you are frying onions and garlic, to enhance the taste of the beef stew. Fresh herbs like coriander and bay leaves also contribute a distinct flavour without making the dish too spicy for the younger members of the family.

How do you deepen the flavor of stew? ›

Dried mushrooms in a stew can add lots of depth of flavour. I soak them first and add the liquid too. 11. Whole spices like cinnamon, star anise or cloves are great added to a stew if you want your dish to have a warm, spicy flavour in a middle eastern style.

Once the meat is tender - but not falling apart, add the potatoes, celery, carrots and butternut squash. Pour over another 2 cups of beef broth and enough water to cover the vegetables. Raise heat and bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer partially covered for about 30 minutes - until the vegetables are tender.

If you have homemade beef stock, use it! However, most commercially produced beef broths taste rather fake; chicken broths are much richer and complex. Bay leaves and thyme – Aromatics for more flavor! Carrots, potatoes and peas are the staple of a traditional stew.

(side note) Some of the flavor of the stew liquid is from those vegetables, especially the celery and carrots. You'll probably want to cook some with the meat, even if you discard (or puree) them.

What is the best way to make beef stew meat tender and juicy? If you want to prepare beef stew meat that is both tender and juicy, the best way to cook it is by searing it on all sides in a hot skillet and then crumbling it on top of a lightly browned roux sauce for about 10 minutes.

The Ideal Stew Ratio: Two Parts Meat, One Part Vegetable

Most meat-based stews call for tough, inexpensive cuts of meat, while vegetarian recipes include the same onions, carrots, and celery typical of a beef stew. Two parts meat to one part vegetables is the perfect ratio for a meaty stew.

Vinegar & optional red wine - Use red wine vinegar and some red wine to give this stew a deep and rich sweet and savory flavor. The wine is optional and can be replaced with additional beef broth, but I do love the complexity it gives to this recipe.

The Best Substitute for Red Wine

Alcohol-free red wine. Beef broth. Chicken broth. Red wine vinegar (use ½ vinegar and ½ water for similar flavor results)