Winter beef stew: ultimate comfort food
Blog: Winemaker's Journal
January 13, 2010
My sister Judy sent me a familiar recipe the other day that sounded so good I immediately ran out to the store for the ingredients. Her steak and mushroom stew with creme fraiche mashed potatoes is the ultimate comfort food supper. Vegetarians will have to go out to eat tonight. This is all about meat.
Judy's recipe comes from the Williams-Sonoma Cookbook, but I've found similar recipes in the Silver Palate cookbooks and in Food and Wine magazine. If you don't want to go to the work, Visconti's serves a stout braised beef stew with garlic mashed potatoes that is to die for.
This is a fairly long cooking process, so start the night before you plan to eat it. Believe me, it's worth the effort.
To get started, brown a few ounces of diced thick-cut bacon in a sauté pan. Remove the bacon when it's crisp and put it aside. Key to the recipe is a lean chuck roast or chuck steak. I cut a 2-pound roast into one-inch chunks and browned them in some the bacon fat. This can be done in stages. When the meat is browned, pour it with any juices into a crockpot or stew pot.
Next, sauté a couple diced carrots, an onion, a couple celery stalks and two cloves of chopped garlic until slightly soft. Toss that into the crockpot. Sauté about a half-pound of sliced crimini mushrooms next. About 10 minutes. Add that to the pot.
To the pot, add about 12 ounces of beef stock, a couple tablespoons of tomato paste, a tablespoon of veal demi glace and couple tablespoons of good mustard. I used a pint of my homebrewed winter stout and a tablespoon of beef bouillon in place of the stock and demi glace. I used honey mustard for the mustard.
Turn on the crockpot, or set the stew pot on a burner at its lowest setting. Stir, cover and forget it for about four hours. I cooked mine in the stockpot for a couple hours and then turned it off before I went to bed, letting it cool down slowly. I put the pot out on my cold indoor porch in the morning and then reheated it while I made the mashed potatoes later that evening. I added a cup of frozen green peas to the stew pot.
The mashed potatoes are easy enough. Yukon Gold or Red Pontiac potatoes are better than russet, but all are good. Cut one medium potato per person you plan to serve into one-inch chunks and boil in a lidded saucepan until soft. Pour off the water (you can pour a little in the stew if you want to expand the sauce a bit). To the potatoes, add enough butter, salt and pepper and creme frache and a little milk or just half-and-half to make it yummy, and mash it with a fork or potato masher. Add just a little milk or half and half at a time so the spuds don't come out too thin and mushy. I added a couple cloves of toasted garlic to mine.
Okay, now you can eat. Put a big scoop of the potatoes on the side of a plate or wide bowl and surround with stew. Serve with a big glass of stout or your favorite red wine and be prepared to be supremely comforted.
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alex39 2 years ago
Winter beef stew: ultimate comfort food
Sounds good except for the stout...just had a lamb thing braised with a stout. Not bad, but I'd recommend red wine in place of the stout next time. Beer is just too bitter. And stout is just, well, too stout.
joanne 2 years ago
Winter beef stew: ultimate comfort food
We made a boneless leg of lamb sort of this way. Seasoned, rolled, tied lamb. Inserted slices of whole orange and some oregano in middle. Sauteed it. Removed it and sauteed carrots, celery, onion, garlic. Added 1 tblsp tom. paste and lamb back to pot. Added one can stout, covered and baked @ 250 for 3-3 1/2 hrs. Reduced liquid, used immersion blender to smooth sauce. Yours sounds much better. We won't use stout again. The gravy was a little bitter and the 2nd day it was very bitter. I wonder if the orange had something to do with it? I'll stick to wine.
steigmeyer 2 years ago
Winter beef stew: ultimate comfort food
The lamb sounds delicious. I love lamb, but yes, a little stout goes a long way if it's very hoppy. I more often cook with wine, but the stout seemed to work well in this recipe, especially with the honey mustard to sweeten things back up slightly. I'll be eating more of it tonight.
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