Please diagnose my stew failure

[fivemack]

Do not follow this recipe, it makes a bland and insipid stew

Acquire a quantity of beef bones from the butcher. Roast them in the oven for about half an hour, then stick them in a large saucepan with 2pts water, one onion quartered, one carrot roughly chopped. Ignore on low heat for four hours, turn off and leave overnight. Discard the bones, strain the stock.

Take one pack of Asda casserole beef; roll the bits in seasoned flour (flour + two sprinkles mixed herbs + a bit of ground pepper) and fry them in olive oil until brown on both sides. Put them in a casserole.

Chop five medium boiling-potatoes into bits about the size of the beef bits, chop four normal carrots into bits which are carrot-cylindrical and as long as they are wide. Put them in the casserole

Chop one onion into small bits, fry them in the pan you fried the beef in until well-fried. Deglaze the pan with a bottle of beer (I used Hobgoblin), transfer the beef-with-onion-in to the casserole. Add about half the stock.

Stick in the oven at 180C for an hour and a half, notice that the liquid is still very watery, add two tablespoons of cornflour mixed up with water, stick in the oven for 45 more minutes. Eat with peas and complain about the bland insiptitude. The texture's good, the meat lumps look right, but the flavour has escaped the meat and somehow not ended up in the gravy.

Comments

[jojomojo.livejournal.com]

Hmm. More pepper/salt/herbs might help perhaps? Or a can of commercial stock if your own stock for whatever reason hasn't quite done the trick.

You could perhaps boil your own stock a bit to reduce it before making the stew, too.

Or, perhaps, omit the flour seasoning and browning step? The thought occurs that this might seal the flavour into the beef, thus not allowing it to get into the sauce.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

You need to simmer a stew for around three hours min. Add wine or beer. It will probably taste even better if left to cool and then cooked for another hour.

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

More wine. This is my solution to all cooking problems.

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

I look forward with some degree of consternation to trying your chocolate cake.

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

I do not specify whether the wine has to be used in the recipe...

[fanf]

Isn't port a plausible ingredient for a chocolate cake?

[ellarien]

I notice you don't mention salt, but then I never add salt to my own cooking, so I won't suggest it. Someone will probably be along to do that shortly.

I tend to use sweet potato or parsnip in my beef casserole to add flavo[u]r; also tomatoes, mushrooms, sweet peppers, a good splodge of crushed garlic, and two or three teaspoons of assorted herbs and spices -- oregano, coriander, black pepper, paprika, basil leaves, maybe a couple of bay leaves. I also usually fry the onion bits *with* the beef.

[lnr]

Salt?

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

Certainly salt or spices or something. I believe that beef stews require mushroom ketchup, and preferably also mushrooms.

Remember that there's a reason that they used to put kidney into beef stew, too. That would make it much richer.

2 pints of stock sounds like about 1.8 pints more than I'd use for this amount of beef.

But it sounds like it's mostly just not using salt; I know some people don't, but with homemade stock you really have to (stock cubes are about half salt).

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Salt might actually be the basic issue, although it's *so* basic that more likely you put in some, played with it when eating the stew, and it wasn't, and you didn't bother to mention it. But just in case....

Herbs and things won't be the *basic* issue of course, though often good.

Making stock first is going considerably further than I've ever gone making stew, or my mother; good results can be obtained simply from browned beef and water and the veggies. I'm guessing quantity of liquid in the version served is a likely issue; use less, or cook longer.

While people are basically right on cooking times, I've had stews cooked less than two hours that I didn't consider thoroughly insipid, so that's probably not the main problem either.

Also possibly your standards for stew are considerably higher than mine, in which case I don't know.

I prefer wine to beer in a stew by quite a lot, but again I don't believe that will be the main problem, just a difference in personal preference (or what you had to hand, or convenient bottle sizes).

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

My standard for stew-gravy is the stuff that you get in a tin as Sainbury's Stewed Steak With Gravy, the instructions for which are I'm sure of the form 'in a standard four-thousand-litre stainless-steel vessel, combine the beef collagen with 1.0 grams of #7 collagen hydrolase made up in the usual way, and hydrolyse at 60C for four hours; add 150 grams of monosodium glutamate'. This is vastly more insipid.

I agree that wine is generally better than beer in stew - if pushed I'd say that it was more acidic and that boiling in acid is the major element of stew - but I had vague memories of beef-with-guinness as a noted recipe and then discovered the supermarket didn't sell guinness in individual bottles.

[crazyscot.livejournal.com]

My rough stew plan seems pretty similar (http://scratch.impropriety.org.uk/wiki/Beef_stew). (I use concentrated liquid stock; making my own is far too much effort. When I write "make up stock" in the recipe, I mean diluting it according to its instructions to a pint or so; maybe further if needed to ensure everything's covered.)

I'm surprised that you used supermarket beef, but went to the butcher for beef bones to make stock. Butcher meat >>>> supermarket meat in my experience.

I don't put potatoes in stew, preferring to serve them separately. Possibly they're too starchy and have leached some of the goodness away?

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

My brother wanders past the butcher from time to time, and beef bones from the butcher are free, whilst the stewing beef I got as part of a general shop at Asda at the weekend. Ben had made a fantastic stock from some pig bones from Wallers, which turned into a great lentil-and-bacon soup a few weeks ago.

[antinomy.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a reasonable stew recipe, though I'd second recommendations for the addition of red wine (or perhaps use stout) and a small quantity of salt containing thing - perhaps veg bouillon powder or a beef stock cube for extra flavour though your bone stock should be ample! What I would recommend most strongly is this - don't start with cheapest supermarket stewing beef. The difference in flavour and quality between this and stewing / casserole steak from a good butcher will blow your proverbial nuts off. Try this before you alter anything else significant about your recipe. It will only ever be as good as the ingredients and your complaint suggests to me that rather than escaping, there was never any flavour in your beef in the first place!

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

About three more onions.

[aardvark179.livejournal.com]

Too high a temperature, too short a time, you're certainly missing herbs (apart from a sprinkle in the flour), rosemary works well with beef, and always stick in a couple of bay leaves, and I'd use a stout or port for beef stew if you're going for a beery one.

[j4.livejournal.com]

This may not be the problem you were looking for,, but IMHO there is a catastrophic lack of dumplings in/on the stew as described. :-}

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

I was already feeling fairly daft making Stodgy Winter Stew on a beautiful summer's evening (but I'd bought the stewing-beef, and I couldn't think of anything cool and summery to be made with stewing beef); dumplings would just be taking the suet.

Besides, I don't have any suet.

Summery beef

[j4.livejournal.com]

Owen made a rather surprisingly marvellous beef salad the other day, though that was sandwich beef rather than stewing beef. It had apple and yoghurt and mustard in and was quite unlike any salad I'd ever eaten. I will prod him to post the recipe, if I remember.

Stew and dumplings is nice (are nice?) at any time of year. Can you make dumplings without suet? It's just generic fat, innit?

Re: Summery beef

[papersky.livejournal.com]

You need suet for proper dumplings.

However, vegetarian suet (Broadlands, available in any Sainsbury's) is actually better than real suet, and has the advantage of keeping forever.

[also-huey.livejournal.com]

Not so much a diagnosis of what you did wrong as how I do it differently:

To start with, forget that entire first paragraph. Stock is like work, and stew starts with the browning of the meat. Maybe simmer some chopped onions and a crushed clove of garlic in the meat fat. Meat should be browned on relatively low heat, and as soon as that's done, dump it (grease, onions and all) into a big stew pot with a couple cups of water and maybe some wine, and whatever spices seem like they should go in. Definitely some salt.

Let that simmer for a while. It's stewing. The longer you can wait, the more tender the meat and the more meaty the liquids will get. I usually try to let this go for about an hour.

Then start chopping and adding vegetables in the order of stuff that needs to cook the longest: turnips, potatoes, carrots, celery, onions, whatever. This generally means that about ten or fifteen minutes after I've added the last whatever-it-was, the potato bits are good and soft and it's about ready to eat. Since I tend to make this a couple quarts at a time, while I'm eating, I'll turn off the stove to let the rest of the stew cool down, leave a couple dinners' worth in the fridge, and freeze the rest in dinner-sized portions.

It's even better reheated, it's very simple, and it never fails.

[meirion.livejournal.com]

I concur (surprise!) with all the others who say "use decent meat instead". You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, and, while I've not tried Asda's casserole steak, I'd be surprised if it's sufficiently better than Sainsbury's stuff to make it worth using for anything other than beef stroganoff where the flavour isn't really in the meat but in the sauce!

Also, garlic. Plenty of. Some strong-tasting mushrooms. And plenty of red wine. (And dumplings too. Even if it is a hot summer's evening -- if you've gone to the effort of making stew, you might as well go the whole hog. Oops, two cliches about pigs in a post about beef!)

[aendr.livejournal.com]

Various people have mentioned salt and being surprised you put potatoes in. If you have something that's too salty and add a potato, it fixes (a lot of) the salt problem. If you add potato to a stew, it is therefore reasonable to assume you lose any salt you had. But I always work on salting to taste after serving because I grew up on my father's low sodium diet and really we don't need that much salt in our moderate climate diets.

Also we always add herbs when making stock (various mixes - bay|sage, parsley, thyme, even mace). Celery is virtually always mentioned to be put in beef stock. I don't like celery but notice when it's missing.

I agree about reducing the stock to be thicker. That way it is also more intensely flavoured. I would strain before reducing it and then leaving overnight; it ought to form a jelly overnight and you should be able to then remove a fat layer with ease.

I would also add mushrooms to the stew. Bear in mind too much carrot will make it too sweet.

[simont]

I'm amused that I read this immediately after this web comic :-)

[sphyg.livejournal.com]

My stew/casserole recipe is bung meat, veg water and seasoning in a pan and simmer on the hob for an hour. Then add more seasoning.

[naath.livejournal.com]

I'd do it in a pan not the oven; dunno if that changes the taste, and simmer for a lot longer.

Making your own stock is fantastic; remember you can also make lots at once and freeze some (to lower the effort density of stock). Stock can be improved by using more variety of veg it in (obviously that has to be strained out).

My mum puts those small, skinless sausages (I forget what they are called :-( but I guess they come in packets, or you could chop up normal sausages into the same kind of size as the carrot pieces) into stew, also turnip (er, sweed, the yellow one) chunks and celery. Possibly adding some gravy powder would strengthen the taste of the stock.

Salt is a good idea but add it to-taste at the end, over salting things is a common problem.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Salt, as several people have said. More herbs. Black pepper. More time.

I disagree about better meat.

I am a lazy person, and I find that this sort of thing works fine if I buy cheap meat with bones in, brown the meat using that method (flour, herbs (lots) & black pepper) throw the meat, onions, carrots potatoes etc (turnip tends to be lovely in stew as in cassoulet) in a casserole with beer/wine/cider a slosh of soy sauce or half a teaspoon of marmite and just water, and cook covered for a long time in a lowish oven. This is one of the things where leaving it in the oven half the day works. It freezes pretty well too. If you want, you can take the bones out at the end when it's falling off them.

I have more often done this with scrag of lamb or lamb loin chops going cheap than with beef, because for years after reading Sterling's We See Things Differently I was afraid of British beef, and now Z doesn't much like it. But I have done it with beef.

There is a thing called herbs salee, and another thing called "good with everything salt". If you're not using commercial stock cubes (I don't) and if you're not using soy sauce or marmite (marmite was made for stews) then they're a good way of getting the salt you want at the stage you need it. Herbs salee come in a little pot of fresh herbs preserved with salt. It gives you herbs and it gives you salt in a good way.

[tigerfort.livejournal.com]

More (browned) onions, and some (also fried) celery. Garlic (again, fried) is good, provided you like garlic, and I would definitely add more herbs than 'a couple of pinches'. We usually put a can of Guiness-or-equivalent-stout into beef casseroles; I'm not sure where hobgoblin comes on the beer-flavour-strength scale. I would also tend to brown the beef, and then put the flour into the pan with the onions; I don't know whether this is a better way of doing things or merely a strange habit. (Having asked stripey_cat, I'm assured that my way is better; the purpose of browning the meat is to bring the flavour out - and change it slightly, and putting flour on it before browning will prevent this from happening.) Mushrooms can also add to the flavour, depending on the effect you want.

I would tend to add a little salt (but only a little) unless using supermarket-type stock (which has lots of salt in anyway). I'd also tend to cook the potatoes separately, unless they're a very strongly flavoured variety (you don't say), because they can suck the strength out of things to a surprising extent.

Finally, I'm strongly inclined to join the crowd crying "but supermarket meat doesn't taste of anything", at least with respect to most vacuum-packed stuff. And good over-the-counter meat is cheaper from a proper butcher, so....

Actually, that's a reasonable point - you don't mention whether the meat was lean/fatty/tendony/whatever. But supermarket 'stewing' packs, in my experience, are often very lean trimmed meat, whereas what you want for a good flavoursome stew is actually stuff with lots of tendon and connective tissue, and a reasonable amount of fat - because those are the things that give the gravy the meat flavour (and tendon that's been stewed for several hours is soft and tasty, rather than impossible to eat:).

[hilarityallen.livejournal.com]

It almost certainly lacks some salt. I don't tend to add huuuge amounts myself (though if salt is present e.g. in commercial stock or bacon, I will not add any more), but some is almost essential if you want something that isn't very spicy to taste of anything.
Also, it is almost impossible to add too much paprika to something of that nature. We've shown this in tests ;)
If you can afford it (and unless you have some really excitingly expensive bits of lifestyle I don't know about, you probably can), buy fresh herbs.
I'd up the percentage of seasoning in the flour - it should be speckled rather than mostly white. Also, bay-leaf(ves) in the stock, possibly with onion with cloves stuck in it, if you like making your own stock. Bayleaf possibly also in stew, but remember to fish it out before eating it.