Beef Stew- A Winter's Meal
There is nothing like a hardy beef stew with carrots to ward off the cold.
A traditional stew beef with carrots and celery makes winter bearable. It has my secret ingredients- potato water and beef stock. Part of my Winter Meal series.
Here’ s my Stew Beef recipe. It uses my secret ingredient – potato water. So boil up a potato first or save your potato water. While you can use powdered or bought beef stock there is nothing better than the real thing. See my article Taking Stock on how you can make it, yourself. I recommend that you freeze your stock in ice cubes.
- Oil for frying
- One large onion chopped
- 2 cloves chopped garlic
- 1 pound sliced stew beef
- 1 Tablespoon of red wine
- 2 large carrots sliced diagonally
- 2 stalks celery chopped
- 2 bay leafs
- 1 tablespoon Soya Sauce
- 3 beef stock ice cubes or ½ cup beef stock or 1 tablespoon or package of powdered beef stock in ½ cup of water
- Approximately 1/3 cup flour (depends how thick you like your stew and how long you leave it on)
- Approximately 1 cup potato water (depends on how long you cook it and how thick you like it.)
- Salt and pepper to taste
Sauté the chopped onion. When the onion is almost brown put in the chopped garlic, sauté until the onions are done. Put in the sliced stew beef. Keeping on a medium heat brown the beef and then add the wine. Add carrots. Pour in beef stock, bay leaf and Soya Sauce. Put in chopped celery. Take a half cup of potato water and sprinkle some (approximately 2 teaspoons) of the flour on top, mix together before putting in the stew. Stir. Put in desired amount of salt and pepper. Put on simmer for about 1 hour. Stir every few minutes adding potato water and/or flour depending on how thick it is and how thick you want it.
Bring to a boil just before serving. Serve with potatoes.
Note: If you want to speed up this process a bit put the carrots in the microwave with enough water to cover them for 2 minutes. Add carrots with the water to the stew.
This tastes great the next day.
See:
Other Winter Meals:
Butternut Squash Coconut Milk Curry
