Beef Stew with Mushrooms, Onions, and Dark Beer

Beef Stew with Mushrooms, Onions, and Dark Beer

adapted from The Complete Meat Cookbook

original recipe can also be found online here, here, here, and another assortment of grocery store links

2 tbsp olive oil
2.5 lbs beef chuck, cut into 2- to 3-inch chunks and trimmed of fat
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 lbs onions, halved and thinly sliced
7 carrots; 5 cut into 1/4-inch dice, 2 cut into 2-inch chunks
1/4 lb prosciutto, diced
2 tbsp chopped garlic
1-1/2 lbs mushrooms, sliced
1 12-oz bottle of dark beer, such as Orval Trappist Ale
2 c beef stock, or more if necessary
1 tsp dried thyme
3 bay leaves
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

In a large Dutch oven or a casserole, heat the oil over medium-high heat.


Season the meat generously with salt and pepper and sear it on all sides, 6 to 8 minutes; you may have to brown the meat in 2 batches to prevent crowding. Remove the meat and set it aside.

Put the onions in the pot, cover, and lower the heat to medium. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring frequently and scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pot.

Stir in the diced carrots (reserve those cut into chunks), along with the prosciutto and the garlic. Cook and stir the vegetables for 5 or 6 minutes, until the onions begin to brown nicely.


Add the mushrooms and cook for 1 to 2 minutes more, stirring frequently.


Put the meat back into the pot and pour in the beer and stock to cover (add a little more if necessary).

Add the thyme, bay leaves, and Worcestershire sauce. Stir and bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer.

I used four bay leaves as they were small.

Cover and cook at a low simmer for about 1-1/2 hours, or until the meat is fork-tender.
Checking after an hour, I found the simmer to be a higher rate than I'd anticipated. The heat was reduced and simmering allowed to continue another hour, checking for fork-tenderness at 30 and 45 minutes.

Remove the beef with a slotted spoon. Degrease the sauce and bring it to a boil.


Add the chunks of carrot and boil until the liquid is reduced to a syrupy consistency and the carrots are tender.

If the liquid gets too thick before the carrots are cooked, add a little stock or water. Discard the bay leaves. Taste the sauce for salt and pepper. Return the meat to the pot and rewarm it gently before serving.

The aroma as the stew simmered was driving me insane. The beer suggested by the authors have to be the perfect beer for this dish. Not at all a beer consumer, I appreciated the recommendation they made -- it was a damn good one.

While time-consuming, as in four hours before dinner consumption, I realize that some of that was my personal technique, especially during and after the simmering time, and my lack of a larger fat separator. Utilizing a new Dutch oven that really holds heat likely caused the extended cooking time. Boiling meat for an hour isn't the same as simmering for an hour and I'm pretty confident that didn't help in expediting preparation. As for the fat separator, I had to degrease in batches. Looking back on it, I really should have done quite a bit of juice reduction prior to trying to degrease.

Additionally, I wonder if when the book authors said to remove the beef they literally meant only the beef. I think that might be the case based on the fact that this was their rendition of carbonnade flamande. Trust that I've never prepared that before, but from Googling images of carbonnade flamande, the stew looks really homogeneous where mine is heterogenous, each vegetable intact. But I wonder how degreasing should be performed if not with a fat separator especially with all of those vegetables in the juice?

No matter, the results tasted great and I'll be more than happy to do it again.

Cost:

• beef chuck roast: $7.45
• onions: $0.83
• carrots: $1.27
• prosciutto: $3.15
• garlic: $0.20
• mushrooms: $5.98
• Orval Trappist Ale: $5.48

Total: $24.36 or $3.05 for each of eight servings.

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