Beef Stew with Red Wine

Just realized today is Friday and I only have 2 pre made meals to send down to the city to feed my kitchen challenged boys for the week. Time to kick things up a notch and get cracking ... so today I am making a slow cooker beef stew made with red wine and a loaf of Maple Seed Bread to go with :)

This is a rich hearty stew inspired by Beef Bourginon but I make it with our home made red wine (Valpolicella or Shiraz in case you're interested) The red wine helps give the gravy a wonderful flavour and I love this stew served up on a bed of garlic mashed potatoes or  alone, with a slice of rustic bread on the side. This also goes well on rice or a thick slice of toasted bread, and you can get as creative with the vegetables that you add to this, or not ;) I tend to like it as a simple stew, with just carrots and celery as the vegetable, but I just as often add small baby potatoes in the last 2 hours of cooking to make this more of a complete meal without all the fuss of cooking potatoes on the side. If the mood strikes, and I have some on hand, I might even throw in some fresh green beans and/or a can of corn, not only to make this an even more hearty nutritious  meal, but to stretch it and lower the calories per serving as well ;) I am doing that tonight in fact. You're the boss of your stew ... remember that!

I don't buy stew meat. I prefer to get some chuck or blade roasts on sale which I use for a variety of beef dishes from stews to ground beef. It's cheaper than some cuts and has a nice fat marbling which lends itself to making delicious stews. I just never know what I am getting when I buy generic stew beef but if you trust your butcher then go ahead, it might save you a few minutes prep time. I'm just kind of picky when it comes to the quality of meat I buy. The only thing I recommend when trimming is to carefully remove any silver skin you find in the roast. It's a lot tougher to cut with your knife than regular fat, so it's a pretty simple procedure to skim the interface between the tougher layer and the meat to remove it. As far as the rest of the fat ... I get rid of the larger more obvious bits but some fat is good so I don't obsess about getting it all. That type of fat adds flavour and most of it melts away during cooking anyway, leaving tender succulent cubes of stewed beef.

This made 8 generous servings and each serving (one soup bowl full) was about 450 calories. with 15g fat and 4g fiber Complete nutritional details here Beef Stew with Red Wine made with all optional ingredients shown.

Ingredients:

• 1 kg Beef chuck/blade roast (I buy slightly larger roasts and usually end up with roughly 1 Kg of stew meat when done trimming excess fat and sliver skin. Today I used a cross rib roast cause that's what I had in the freezer)
• 2 medium cooking onions (diced) or 1 large jumbo onion 
• 2 Tbsp fat or oil ( if I have it I'll use some bacon fat, lard or a garlic infused regular olive oil, not extra virgin you want something that can handle a bit of heat)
• 3 Tbsp All purpose flour
• 1 Tbsp butter
• 3-4 cloves garlic or garlic puree
• 1 cup red wine (whatever you have on hand for DRINKING don't use cooking wine)
• 3 cup beef broth (I use my own salt free beef broth but a carton of bought broth is fine)
• 3-6 medium carrots, roughly chopped into 1"pieces - how many you add depends on the size of your carrots how much meat you have in the stew and your personal preference, so start with three and eyeball it after you add them. If it looks a little skimpy add more ;)
• 3-4 Celery stalks rough chopped into 1/2" pieces, again, I start with 3 large stalks and go up from there as needed
• 1/2 tsp dry thyme leaves, OR 3-4 sprigs of fresh if you have it
• 1/2 tsp rosemary leaves, OR a couple sprigs of fresh rosemary if you have it
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 Tbsp tomato paste (I sometimes add 2 Tbsp (personal preference) ... you might like to look for a tube of tomato paste at the grocery store instead of going to the trouble of opening one of those small cans ... tubes are much more convenient and keep forever in the fridge. I made the switch a while back and I love it ... no more wasted tomato paste when all I need is a Tbsp)
• 1 Tbsp Better Than *Beef* Bouillon (optional)
• 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce (I actually don't measure this just a shake or two from the bottle)
• 15 baby potatoes, halved (optional)
• Green Beans (optional)
• Canned corn (optional)
• Salt and black pepper to taste - Since I use a lot of home made non processed broths etc in my cooking and my home made items are made without added sodium the amounts I might need could be quite different from what you need ... a good cook always tastes her recipes before serving and seasons accordingly ... I am assuming you are a good cook ;) This recipe does benefit from a generous portion of pepper however, the last time I made this I added about 1/2 tsp of each.

Directions: 

1. Trim roast into 1" cubes if needed, discard any excess fat and silver skin
2. In a heavy bottomed dutch oven add 1 Tbsp fat or oil of your choice and brown half the cubed beef (about 500g) over medium high heat. Keep meat moving to brown all sides and prevent burning. When edges get a bit of criminalisation remove meat and reserve.
3. Repeat with another Tbsp oil and the rest of the beef cubes. When done remove from pot and reserve.
4. Into the now empty pot add butter and the onions and sweat onions until they just begin to brown. Add garlic and flour and cook a minute or two just to remove the raw taste in the flour. Take care not to burn the garlic.
5. Add 1 cup of wine to the onion/flour mixture and stir well
6. Add beef broth (approx 3 cups or a 1L carton) and again stir well to get all the bits off the bottom of the dutch oven
7. This is where I begin the transfer to my slow cooker but you can just continue in the dutch oven if you like and use the oven to finish the dish (set at 250-300'F) I don't like to finish this on the stove top because no matter how careful I am, I always burn the bottom ;)
8. Place beef with any juices in your slow cooker crockpot
9. Pour onion/flour/broth mixture over the meat rinsing the pot with a little water to get all the tasty bits.
10. Add rough chopped carrots and celery, Beef bouillon (if using), Worcestershire Sauce, and Tomato paste
11. Add Bay leaf and any fresh or dry herbs (if using fresh herbs you might like to tie them tightly into a bundle for easy removal later but I tend to just throw them in and fish out the stalks after the stew is done )
12. Season with salt and pepper
13. If you want to add potatoes to the stew, add them during the last 2 hours of cooking.
14. I generally cook this covered for 6-8 hours on the high setting or until the beef is tender and beginning to fall apart.

NOTE: If the gravy seems too thin when done it is easy to thicken this up by adding a Tbsp or two of instant potato flakes. I always like to keep some on hand just for something like this ... we never actually have instant potatoes as a side  ;) Another tip to thicken the gravy is to add some Chia Seeds and I often do some combination of both chia and potato flakes. Chia seeds have no flavour themselves so they take on the flavour of whatever you add them to and they form a suspension gel with the liquid that does a great job to thicken any sauce. Once they gel you would never know they were there and they also add a nice fiber kick  I never knew much about chia seeds before but they are marvelously versatile little critters and they rapidly became a staple item for my pantry once I figured out what they were and how to use them ... great in smoothies too ;) In case you are wondering,  I don't generally bother with a cornstarch or flour slurry any more, cornstarch sauces don't re heat up well (great initially but too clumpy when reheated) and while there is nothing wrong with a flour slurry per se I just like the potato/chia method better.