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Stewing beef

Loads of onion and carrot, garlic and a couple of bay leaves, add a drip or two of stock/water if it gets too dry.
 
Get shin of beef if you can find it. It has a high fat content. Fat is what gives you the tender, you can cook lean beef all day and it will still be dry.

This. Fat helps massively and give more taste.
 
The recipe I used this week:

Cube lots of ox cheek. Sear briefly in oil if you can be bothered. Add a bottle of wine, carrots, celery, herbs, garlic, seasoning. Simmer for a couple of hours. Add shallots. Simmer for another hour. Let cool. Defat. Warm up. Serve with a mashed potatoes seasoned with truffle oil, and a glass of excellent wine. Any remaining jus is good for reducing and pouring over poached eggs.


The recipe from a couple of weeks ago.

Short rips, root vegetables, celery, herbs, garlic en chemise, water to cover, bring to boil, simmer for about two hours. Add shallots and simmer for another hour. Cool, defat, make risotto with the stock. Serve with the world's best mustard and cornichons. The remaining stock can be used for soup of course.
 
How do you stop the onions falling apart? I add shallots in the last hour of cooking.

I don't, I let them them 'melt' with the carrot to make the sauce. First I'll give the onions a quick stir-fry on a bit of olive oil, then add the garlic, ground white pepper and bay leaves, sometimes a bit of chopped fresh coriander leaves.
When I want to have 'solid' onions I will add later as you do.
 
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the best beef stew/casserole should be cooked so slow that a bubble barely breaks the surface whilst cooking. You need at least 2 hours. Then leave it a day and reheat before eating.
A good dust in seasoned flower first. brown it all over in oil. Onions Carrots Garlic and bottle of good (never harsh) red wine all help, with some rosemary and thyme in the stew. But SLOW. So slow you fall asleep waiting. Then slower than that.
 
I used to work making food packaging and got involved, in a small way with the Food Research Institute, or whatever they called themselves, based on the outskirts of London at the time - it was around 30 years ago.
Fat does not add flavour, marbling does not add flavour - all part of the blind tatsting that has been done. It is folklore.
Shin around here is actually lean - full of grissle, but lean. I am unsure why a cow would/could get fat legs

How do you stop the onions falling apart? I add shallots in the last hour of cooking.

I usually buy the tiny "reject" onions in Tesco and they go in for the full time and they come out whole, but very soft. (I also add a chopped large onion, with 2-3 small onions per helping). Be careful not to chop off the root-plate - just the actual roots - they will fall apart if you remove the root-plate.

Simple stew here for 3-4 helpings (something like 500g meat, all spoon measures are heaped) - boil the kettle, into the bottom of the casserole - stock or stock cube, large dollop of Worcs. sauce, chopped small can of drained anchovies, tspn mustard powder, one large carrot in 1 inch lengths, 2 sticks celery (chopped), or the same quantity of celeriac, same again swede, small/tiny whole onions (or shallots) if you have them. Brown the meat. Fry off the chopped large onion until transparent, add about one dspn farina (potato flour - I hate sauces made with wheat flour), tspn thyme, 3-4-5 bayleaves, 1/2 tspn marjoram - fry for ONE MINUTE ONLY and keep it moving. Use the boiling water to deglaze the pan after the majority has been scraped into the casserole.
Add stock/water to get everything almost submerged.

I never use wine - I have eaten plenty of stews with it and it has never added anything that I thought worth the cost, if anything at all.
 
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Use shin beef, the best results for me are using a slow cooker on low for 8hrs. A good browning with a raging hot pan as not to cook the meat, and nice thick slabs of meat instead of cubing it.

I like using a good beef stock, lashings of Worcestershire sauce, fresh thyme and usually a glass of wine or ale to top the liquid off.

Slow cooking is the answer to just about any tough customer. Times vary. I use 'S' setting on my oven, meat or stew covered in my chinese SS casserole pot. I check after 2 hours, then at intervals thereafter. Never had a failure. Flavour is superb.
 
Slow cooking is the answer to just about any tough customer. Times vary. I use 'S' setting on my oven, meat or stew covered in my chinese SS casserole pot. I check after 2 hours, then at intervals thereafter. Never had a failure. Flavour is superb.
5 hours this last time at 90 degrees. The finished beef was tough, so there is more to it than just slow cooking and not overheating.
 
Add stock/water to get everything almost submerged.

Interesting, I avoid submerging the meat. I find that it loses flavour and prefer to keep adding stock/water if necessary. Fatter meat won't dry as much.
 


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