Beef Stew Help

andrew1977

Hi

Need your expert ideas and help again please

Cooked this receipe last week and liked it, but feel i need to add some potatoes to it to beef it up a bit.

Anyone any ideas on which type of potatoes/amount of potatoes/ what time to add them to the mix for cooking ?

http://www.safefood.eu/en/Consumer/Recipes/Dinner/Beef-Stew/
Any tips appreciated.

MeerKat17

I would add the potatoes about half way through (approx 45mins before serving), to thicken the stew up a bit.

Also, if you add a spoon full of bisto to it, and 2/3 spoons of ballymalloe relish its lovely!!

chalkitdown

andrew1977 wrote: »

Hi

Need your expert ideas and help again please

Cooked this receipe last week and liked it, but feel i need to add some potatoes to it to beef it up a bit.

Anyone any ideas on which type of potatoes/amount of potatoes/ what time to add them to the mix for cooking ?

http://www.safefood.eu/en/Consumer/Recipes/Dinner/Beef-Stew/
Any tips appreciated.

It seems to me to be a little light on flavour going by the recipe. I would add one clove of garlic, a stick of celery and some barley. If you want to thicken it, grate in a potato at the start.

Dizzyblonde

I'd add a tablespoon of tomato puree and a good pinch of mixed herbs (or a sprig of fresh thyme) to that recipe. If you're going to add potatoes, be aware that they'll absorb a lot of the salt in the stew so you'll need to check for seasoning at the end. I prefer to cook my potatoes separately, but if you do decide to throw them in for the last half hour or so, make sure they're waxy and not floury because floury ones will just break up. Baby new potatoes go really well with beef stew.

E26

Am i delighted to find this thread or what- planning on doing a beef stew tonight for the first time- anyone be able to give me a good receipe:) have been looking everywhere and some put red wine in which i dont know is a good thing or not!! thanks in advance

The Hill Billy

And you can't go wrong by adding a couple of bay leaves...

rgiller

E26 wrote: »

Am i delighted to find this thread or what- planning on doing a beef stew tonight for the first time- anyone be able to give me a good receipe:) have been looking everywhere and some put red wine in which i dont know is a good thing or not!! thanks in advance

Usually cook it in a casserole dish in the oven for several hours. Here's how I do it:

500g diced beef - brown it in a hot saucepan (but don't cook through) then tip it into the oven dish

Rinse out the saucepan with a glass of red wine and get any stuck on bits off the pan, then pour into the oven dish

2 onions, 4 carrots, 4 sticks of celery and maybe 2 cloves of garlic all chopped up roughly and cooked in oil in the same saucepan for ~10 minutes, then fire it into the dish

Add a tablespoon of plain flour and mix it all together, then some more wine (another glass), a can of chopped tomatoes and a mug full of beef stock (~250ml).

Add a teaspoon of tomato paste, 3 or 4 bay leaves, a decent amount of pepper and a small bit of salt and cook in the oven for ~3 hours at 160 degrees.

Delicious!

E26

Thanks rgiller for recipe- cant wait to try, sounds delic:D persume any type red wine is fine to use?- am usually white wine person..

duploelabs

a couple of dashes of fish sauce and a star anise at the start will make it taste more 'beefy'

nesbitt

I have not cooked proper beef stew in a while now. I love adding spuds to it too, then its the perfect one pot meal. For me the beef has to be a large rib steak with nice marbling of fat not round steak as it is too lean for good stew.

Gone Fishin

Jaysus Lads, star anise, fish sauce an garlic??!! Move away from the Stew pot!!! Beef, veg, bay leaves, parsley and thyme plus 3-4 oxo stock cubes - slow cooked over 2-3 hours. Spuds cubed or baby spuds added about 1 hour before the end. Add one tbsp of Bisto to thicken if required. Thats my Nannies recipe. Has never failed me. Although she used to add barley in if I'm not mistaken.

nesbitt

Gone Fishin wrote: »

plus 3-4 oxo stock cubes.

Seems like a lot of oxo?

I would use bullion beef cube for stock used in a beef stew, I find oxo very salty.

duploelabs

Gone Fishin wrote: »

star anise, fish sauce

They're accent flavours, you don't actually taste them but their aniseed qualities accent the umami flavour of the meat, making it taste more savory and 'meaty'.

Also oxo cubes are the work of the devil

syklops

Gone Fishin wrote: »

Jaysus Lads, star anise, fish sauce an garlic??!! Move away from the Stew pot!!! Beef, veg, bay leaves, parsley and thyme plus 3-4 oxo stock cubes - slow cooked over 2-3 hours. Spuds cubed or baby spuds added about 1 hour before the end. Add one tbsp of Bisto to thicken if required. Thats my Nannies recipe. Has never failed me. Although she used to add barley in if I'm not mistaken.

Is it not a bit hypocritical to condemn the use of star anise and then advise using FOUR oxo cubes? No offence, but the reason your using so many oxo cubes is to, pardon the pun, 'beef' up the flavour. You can do that in cheaper and more interesting ways using things like star anise, though I usually put the following in to beef up my beef stews:

A teaspoon of Tomato puree
A few drops of Wostershire sauce
A teaspoon of soy sauce(or kikkoman if you have it)
A teaspoon of Red wine vinegar
And as someone else said a mouthful or so of Red wine.

The Hill Billy

duploelabs wrote: »

Also oxo cubes are the work of the devil

Nooooo! I love Oxo in my beef stews. Maybe they are not to everyone's taste, but I grew up on them & a stew ain't a stew unless it has an Oxo in it.

duploelabs

Hill Billy wrote: »

Nooooo! I love Oxo in my beef stews. Maybe they are not to everyone's taste, but I grew up on them & a stew ain't a stew unless it has an Oxo in it.

If you knew what went in to them, you'd change your mind. Just think HotDogs but worse, much worse

The Hill Billy

The only thing I won't eat are mushy peas. So as long as they're not included I'll be happy.