Please diagnose my stew failure
Jun. 11th, 2008 09:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fivemackDo 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.
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.
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no subject
Date: 2008-06-11 09:28 pm (UTC)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).
no subject
Date: 2008-06-11 09:53 pm (UTC)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.