Beef Stew without a recipe

Today, I made beef stew from scratch without a recipe. Stew is a braise where the protein and the veggies are all together in the braise liquid. In a traditional braise, you don’t cut up the meat into small pieces; you usually keep it pretty much whole or about fist-sized pieces and cook it low and slow, usually 250 to 275. Stews are still slow-cooked, but they are all in one pot.

Stews have existed since mankind figured out how to make cooking pots. Think of it like this: You have a pot and some meat, veggies, and herbs, but you have more people to feed than meat, so how do you stretch things? Stews are the perfect way to stretch the meat into a meal to more people.

Here is how I made it.

First, I cut up two stalks of celery, one large carrot, and a medium onion. I also minced two cloves of garlic. The meat was boneless beef shortribs that I had on sale. I cut it into one-inch cubes and tossed it with salt, pepper, and flour. I have a small blue Dutch oven in our small Cuisinart oven, so I put some oil in the Dutch oven and put it on a burner.

I browned the beef in two batches to allow it to brown well. After the meat was browned, I put it into a bowl. Now, we need to cook the mirpoux. I dumped the vegetables into the Dutch oven and sauteed them until the onions were softened. I added the garlic, two bay leaves, and two large tablespoons of tomato paste and stirred it in. Once they were well mixed, I added a cup of wine and let it cook down.

The garlic, bay leaves, and tomato paste add depth and flavor to the sauce. The wine helps tenderize the meat. Cooking the wine down removes the alcohol taste and adds more depth to the sauce.

Once it was cooked down, I added the meat back in and stirred to coat it. At this point, I added a quart of beef stock and stirred it well. Turning up the heat, I brought the stew to a boil. I turned on the oven at slow cook level, covered the Dutch oven, and set the oven on high slow cook for four hours.

I peeled two potatoes, cut them into one-inch cubes, and then boiled them until they were fork-tender.

After two hours, I checked on it, and the meat was tender. I set the oven to warm.

I mixed two tablespoons of cornstarch with ¼ cup of water. Put the stew on a burner and add the cornstarch slurry, stirring. The stew thickens up from the slurry. At this point, I drained the potatoes, added them to the stew, and stirred. The stew is done.

The stew is as delicious as I made it; I did not have to add salt or other seasoning. You can add lots of stuff to a stew like this, like more carrots or celery. It has a lot of gravy, which I like. Make some biscuits to go with it.