Beef Stew

[aklap]

Beef Stew

2 pounds beef
3 - 4 Tb Sweet Rice Flour
2 Tb chopped fresh parsley
1/4 tsp thyme
salt & pepper to taste
1 1/2 cups cubed onions
1 1/2 cups of cubed celery
3 cups cubed and peeled potatoes
3 cups sliced carrots
28 ounces beef GF broth [Kitchen Basics, Imagine, etc] (Herb-Ox w/ 28 oz of water could be used instead of beef broth) Option - replace 6 oz of stock with 6 oz of red wine.



Preheat oven to 325.

Trim fat from beef and cut into 1.5 inch cubes. We get stew meat that's already cubed at our meat market.

Put flour, salt & pepper into plastic bag. Drop in a handful of meat, close bag and shake to coat. Remove coated pieces and set aside. Repeat this until all pieces are coated. You may need to add more flour as you go. Just be mindful as to how many pieces you have left and how much flour is in the bag - you don't want to have a lot to throw out when done.

Discard excess flour.

Combine parsley, pepper & thyme and set aside.

Put half of beef on the bottom of a Dutch oven or a big pan with a lid. Top with half the onions, half the potatoes, half the carrots. Sprinkle with half the parsley mixture. Repeat layering (starting again with the beef and ending with parsley). Pour in broth [or broth/wine mixture]. Cover and bake for 2 hours.

Al & Peg Notes:

This recipe as it's shown is fine, however, it could use a bit of jazzing up. We are making this for dinner tomorrow afternoon. We are planning on replacing 6 oz of beef broth with red wine. 6 oz equals a mini bottle of wine that you get in a 4 pack.

Edit 2/5/07 - We really like the addition of the red wine. However, it turns the sauce [and the potatoes] a slight shade of purple. It tastes good, but color is not right.

We also added a several shakes of McCormick's Grill Mates Hamburger Seasoning.

We did have to add a little extra salt after tasting it.
_________________
Al

“We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love.” Mother Teresa

[The Edifying Conscience]

Red wine makes all stews/braises taste better! A couple of bay leaves might also help the flavor.

[aklap]

TEC - is there any way to reduce the color effect the red wine has [a purple hue]? You could do the potatoes separately, but that would defeat several purposes.
_________________
Al

“We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love.” Mother Teresa

[gfrach]

I put port in my stew. Even better than wine. And the way I reduce the color effect is to use tomatoes in the stew, too. Then everything is red anyway.

(Also, if you eat enough borscht then you won't even notice the color difference because it's so much less than the color of borscht.)

Rach

[The Edifying Conscience]