Alton's Good Eats Beef Stew | Food Network

[Music] if i have a stew credo it is this the stewer will never miss an opportunity to create flavor with that in mind we toss our meat with a tablespoon of kosher salt and sear it on a hot cast iron griddle and now for the paste whisk together a quarter of a cup of tomato paste with a quarter of a cup of apple cider vinegar i like the unfiltered kind and a little bit of worcestershire sauce one and a half teaspoons love that smoky fermented fish flavor that gives out there we'll also need some herbs just mixed herb i'd say a teaspoon and a half of anything containing some oregano and some some thyme and some rosemary there we go last but not least one tablespoon of either hot smoked or sweet paprika now when your paste is thoroughly whisked and the meat is thoroughly brown toss one into the other i believe that heavy duty aluminum foil would be the first choice for a braise like this now i know what you're thinking you're thinking well cooking tomato products and aluminum is insane because the acid dissolves the metal well you're right a few little aluminum ions may slip out of their normal place but it would take a very very long time for that leaching to reach anything close to a toxic level months probably now a tight seal is important so crimp all the way down one side and then crimp up both of the ends our little bundle of joy goes in a cold oven and i'm going to slide a little pan and set under it just in case there's any dripping we will set for 250 degrees now the total cooking time is going to be right at four hours time's up my luscious lovelies now our little uh metallic parcel here doesn't just bear one precious commodity but three that's right there's the meat of course but there's also the uh the liquid and the uh the fat that cooked out so we want those badly they are full of goodness i'm just going to open up the end of this and let that drain out aluminum cools down pretty quickly there we go now the the meat we want to cool so i'm just going to move that up to a cooling rack we're going to leave it here on the counter for an hour and this liquid we need to get into something that's a little easier to uh to handle so i'm going to drain that into this beaker and then we will move this to the refrigerator well that's what we're looking for no not that that that nice solidified disc of highly flavored beef fat which is settled on top and just use a little knife and pop that right out now if it doesn't solidify properly in your refrigerator you can always stick it down into the freezer for a little while finally reassemble the finished dish place a large saucier or a saute pan over medium heat and drop in about a tablespoon's worth of your uh your fat puck uh wrap and refrigerate the rest for some other delectable application walk a walk never mind while that melts let's uh harvest some veggies peel and slice one large yellow or white onion next we cube one pound of red potatoes when the fat is good and hot add your onions along with a big fat pinch of kosher salt and break the slices up into rings then drain and add the potatoes along with a healthy grind of black pepper next in the pot the reserved cooking liquid very important lit up drop the heat and simmer for half an hour since bone and gristle are never good eats unless you're a rabbit datsun they have to be removed before we add the meat to the final stew now the bone well that's easy enough to find and odds are they'll just pull right away the gristle that's going to cling to the meat it's not so easy to get off and that's why i use these little guys to just snip that away easier than a knife just put the meat on top of the veggies don't stir in recover and heat well just until the the meat's hot again take about 10 minutes [Music] the meat is perfectly heated through but it's not falling apart that's because we let it cool down before reheating and that is why stews braises fricase and blankets are always better the second day

Channel: Food Network

Views: 895,664

Keywords: stews, beef stew, meat, vegetables, main dish, techniques, recipe, how to, alton brown, good eats, food network

Id: psxwyyrZN3A

Length: 4min 25sec (265 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 21 2015