Meet Your Meat: Stew-pendous!

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Sorry for the pun, I couldn’t help myself …and my friends are a bad influence.

So this week I made stew using the eye round roast. Remember that post I did here? That post talked about one way of using that particular cut of meat. It was BOGO at our grocery store, so I still had one left over.

I searched high and low on the internet for a recipe that insured that this cut of meat could indeed, be stewed. Because it is so incredibly lean, it doesn’t have a lot of fat running through it, and I was afraid it would create tough little chunks if stewed. I couldn’t really find a solid answer anywhere, nor a good enough recipe. So I did what I often do: made it up as I went along.

The results? Incredible!

I must’ve been good last year, because Santa brought me a Le Creuset dutch oven (In the color “Ocean” So I named it Billy Ocean. Get outta my dreams…and into my pot…) so I decided a stew would be the perfect thing to break this baby in! Don’t have a dutch oven? Dont worry! Just use a regular ol’ pot!

There may feel like a lot of steps to this, but it’s really just: add something, cover, simmer.. add something, cover, simmer. It’s easy. Trust me.

Ingredients

• 1 eye round roast, cut into 1″ chunks
• 1/4 cup of flour
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 large onion, diced
• 2 large carrots, diced
• 2 stalks of celery, diced
• 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped (I LOVE garlic. If you don’t, then feel free to cut back to 1 or 2 cloves)
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tbsp thyme
• 1 cup of red wine
• 1 1/2 cups of beef broth (I always use low sodium)
• 1, 14 oz. can of diced tomatoes
• 1 cup of sliced mushrooms
• 4 potatoes, diced

Instructions

1. The first thing we need to do, is brown the meat. So coat the chunks of roast in the flour, and heat the olive oil in the bottom of the pan. You might have to brown the chunks in batches, because you do NOT want to overcrowd the pot. If you do, you’ll end up STEAMING the meat, instead of BROWNING it.
2. After all of the meat is browned, you’ll be left with this:
   
   This is indeed, good stuff, aka- “Fond.” These little brown bits are going to add a layer of caramelized, smoky goodness to everything. Add the carrots/celery/onion/garlic on top of this, along with the bay leaf, thyme, and add a pinch of salt.
3. When they look like this:
   
   add the meat back to the pot, and add your wine, broth, and can of tomatoes. Use a wooden spatula or whisk and (gently, but effectively) scrape the bottom of the pan to release all of the brown bits.
4. Cover, and cook on medium/low for 2 hours, stirring occasionally (and gently scraping the bottom to make sure nothing burns). After the 2 hours has gone by, add the mushrooms, and the potatoes, and cook for an additional 35 mins.

And then viola! Your stew will be ready!

It does take a lot of time, but it’s easy as hell, and the benefits greatly outweigh the time it takes it make this.

The red wine and mushrooms really help to enhance the meatiness of the stew. It’s got rich, luscious, dark, and complex flavors. The BF and I bought a loaf of fresh, French bread and devoured the whole loaf by sopping up the smooth gravy this stew produces.

Well, now you have two(2) things you can make with one(1) piece of meat! Don’t you feel smart?

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4 Notes

1. Happy Life, Happy Wife says:

   January 11, 2011 at 6:37 am

   I saw this post on the BBB community. Looks yummy! I’m not sure if I can get my hubby to eat it with all those vegetables, but I can’t wait to try it.

   Reply
   • admin says:

     January 11, 2011 at 11:59 am

     You’d be surprised! The veggies cook down and absorb the flavors of the wine and the broth, they don’t even taste like veggies anymore Good luck!

     Reply
2. Mark says:

   January 30, 2011 at 10:48 am

   Nice work. The ‘good stuff’ should always be used. Thanks.

   Reply

3. Pingback: WW Weigh In – Best Beef Stew | My Bizzy Kitchen