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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Date: 2008-06-12 11:36 am (UTC)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.