From ThisBlueWiki
Vegetable Beef Stew
(I'd call it Beef Stew but there are WAY more veggies than meat)
This recipe is a work in progress, and there is stuff that I could
have done better next time, which I'll mark with an footnote.
Basically right now this is just a transcription of what I did,
which I'll eventually modify into a recipeish thing.
1.5lbs beef stew meat, cubed fairly small (1 inch or so)[1]
6+ medium brown potatoes, cubed a bit bigger
6-8 celery hearts, sliced
10oz baby portabella mushrooms, cubed small
5oz crimini mushrooms, halved or quartered depending on size[1a]
4 handfuls dried green lentils
16oz frozen pea & carrot mix[1b]
3 small onions
2 12oz cans V8
1 5.5oz can spicy hot V8
2 14.5oz cans beef broth
1 bottle Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
apple juice
marsala
32+ oz water as needed
unbleached wheat flour
mixing flour
salt
olive and canola oil
onion flakes
coarse garlic powder
black pepper
tabasco sauce
worcestershire sauce
dried basil, thyme, rosemary
4+ cloves garlic, minced[2]
Get two mixing bowls, and dump some wheat flour in the smaller.
Sprinkle salt on it, mix, and flour the beef, placing it in the larger
bowl. When you're almost done, coat a large skillet quite liberally
with olive and canola oil to taste and place over med-high heat.
Finish flouring the beef and set up a platter with paper towels to
remove it to later.
Brown the beef at a high temperature, agitating fairly often to
avoid sticking. Avoid putting too much into the skillet at once
(pieces should be fairly well distributed) so the meat won't steam
in escaping vapor. Remove the beef to platter with paper towels
as it becomes a deep brown on all sides. When complete, place paper
towels on top to absorb excess oil and set aside.
Pour off oil from skillet. Scrape the browns from the bottom of the
skillet and throw them into the bottom of a very large pot.[3] Pour
beef broth into the pot and heat on medium low. Do not boil. While
broth is heating, dice one half a small onion. Brown over med-high
heat with a small amount of oil in the scraped skillet.[4] When broth
is hot, add minced garlic, browned onion, basil, thyme, rosemary,
pepper, onion flakes and a healthy splash of worcestershire sauce;
stir rapidly to break up the browns which have absorbed water by now.
After simmering this mixture a few minutes to release the flavor of
the herbs, spices, garlic and onions, start adding vegetables. I
hadn't cut all my vegetables up beforehand, which I should have, so
this went sort of slowly. I added celery, then potatoes, then
mushrooms, then peas and carrots, then lentils. As the pot fills up,
add water as needed but keep the level a bit low.[5] Increase heat
to compensate for addition of cool liquids. Stir often. Keep below
a boil.
Once you're done adding veggies, add beer, allow to heat, then add
meat and garlic powder. Mix thorougly over medium heat. Cut
remaining onions into sixths or eighths vertically and throw them
in the pot. Add all V8, good splash of apple juice, splash marsala,
tabasco, salt, and increase heat until hot again[6], stirring often.
Allow to bubble briskly uncovered with close supervision and frequent
mixing for 45 minutes or so. Keep folding the skin on the top back
into the mixture and make sure things aren't sticking to the bottom.
Once it's reduced a bit and the veggies have shrunk, reduce to a low
simmer, cover, and continue to cook for a couple hours, stirring
occasionally and breaking up anything stuck to the bottom (probably
lentils). Add liquid as needed. In the last hour, begin taste
testing and adding more salt, pepper, hot sauce, and onion flakes as
needed.
When cooked to satisfaction, remove from heat and thicken with mixing
flour as desired. Since I like it a bit thick and starchy, I'd add
a bit of liquid if it's already "thick enough" and then add mixing
flour.
Serve with bread and butter, and/or over basmati rice. If I've written
it right, should serve 6-8.
[1] Use 2lbs or more meat depending on how much meat you like. 1.5lbs
yields a stew that is primarily mushrooms and veggies with some
meat. It's very good though, and probably healthier.
[1a] it would have been 8oz, but my pot got full. 10oz baby bellas +
5oz crimini was a LOT of mushrooms, but they shrank. I'll be
buying a bigger pot and using all the mushrooms next time.. it
looks like a lot but it's fine.
[1b] Again, full pot; this would have been 20oz. At this point you
should be looking at 2lbs stew meat even if you don't want a
really meaty stew.
[2] I'd probably use at least 6 cloves next time.
[3] Next time I'll probably deglaze the pan the right way using the
beef broth, then throw all of it into the pot, but I didn't know
about deglazing until afterwards. In short: pour off the oil
and then heat liquid in the pan and scrape the bottom, instead
of scraping the bottom dry and throwing the results into the pot
like I did.
[4] If I used very little oil and used solely olive oil, or just kept
a teeny bit of the mixture used to brown the meat, I could probably
throw the diced onions in, brown them a bit, and THEN deglaze as
described in [3], then throw ALL of this into the pot and start
adding garlic, herbs, etc.
[5] Because more liquid is going to be added; see [6]
[6] I keep heating, then adding cold liquid, then heating, etc. There
is probably a better way to do this and I'll most likely
consolidate the beer and broth and water next time, but I wanted
to add the V8 last.