The other day my sister (I have three by the way that flock around my kitchen on a regular basis) brought over 2 hunks of chuck meat. “I want to make stew”, she said. I always love a good stew. It’s easy. You can dump everything in and just let it simmer usually 3 hours if you have it on low and about 2 hours on medium heat.
Stews are comforting for the whole family. It’s a one dish meal. You don’t have to worry about it once everything is in. Afterwards all you need is some mashed potatoes to ladle it on. You can even eat it with rice.
This stew calls for Guinness stout so it’s a little Irish in nature. Stout gives it that bitter edge that goes so well with meat especially beef and potatoes. For non-drinkers, you can use Guinness Malta but this will thicken into an almost soy sauce-like taste. So it’ll be a little like a daging masak kicap with gravy.
Ingredients:
1 kg chuck meat
Some flour
3 tablespoons of oil
1 can of stout
2 cups of warm chicken stock (you can make this quickly by using 2 tablespoon of concentrated stock mixed in 2 cups of water
Vegetables- 4 carrots, 5 potatoes, 6 shallots, 1 turnip, 1 garlic bulb, 1 cup peas, 2 punnets of Swiss brown and button mushrooms
Bay leaves
Salt and pepper to taste
"Stews are delicious one dish meals"
Method:
1/ Cut beef into large pieces (about 1 inch squares)
2/ Roll beef in flour and fry it with garlic until brown and a little crisp
3/ Take out the beef and fry whole shallots with bay leaves until a little fragrant
4/ Add in mushrooms and beef
5/ Add in all the other vegetables except for the peas
6/ Stir everything around until well-mixed
7/ Add in stout and then the chicken stock. You can also add the salt and pepper here
8/ Close the pot and let it simmer for 2 hours stirring occasionally
9/ Add in peas and let it simmer for another one hour on low heat
Results:
You can check the beef with a fork to see if its tender enough. Taste-wise I like mine with a more bitter edge but if you prefer your stew a little sweeter, add in some tomato puree before you pour in the stout. Now you can ladle it out. Stews can be a hearty soup to have before a meal. I like mine with
crusty French bread to mop up the gravy with. And like curries and chilli con carne, it's even better the next day!
Chef says:
Do not cut the beef too small as this will make your meat tougher.
This recipe is incredibly good for crock pots. You can just throw everything in and leave it for the whole day. When you get home the meat will be so tender you can cut it with a spoon!
You can substitute beef for lamb. And it takes less time to cook too- about 45 minutes.
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