Hi guys, I'm Laura Vitale On this episode of Laura in the kitchen, I'm gonna show you how to make beef stew. Now I don't know if you can kinda tell by my voice, but I'm feeling a little under the weather today I haven't been feeling too good the past few days so I needed to make myself something that was just comforting that I could just eat it for pretty much the next two to three days keep it in the fridge and just keep reheating it It's gonna, like, you know, nurse me back to health. So, before we get started, let's go over the ingredients. You're gonna need some stewing meat and I'm just choosing to use a chopped roast for this I think it works best, but you can use whatever you like. What I've got here is an array of vegetables I've got some onions, carrots, potatoes, celery And a little bit of fresh garlic. And I just peeled them, washed them, cut them into large chunks I like my veggies to be the same size as my meat, but that's up to you I've got some beef broth, some frozen peas that I have defrosting a little bit of red wine, some tomato paste, fresh thyme, fresh rosemary some dried bay leaves, a little bit of all-purpose flour, You're gonna need olive oil, salt and pepper- those are your ingredients. Now, a stew is very different from, say, baking A stew, you can do whatever you want. You can put whatever you want in it So if you don't like to use the wine, don't use the wine, put a little bit of extra stock Um, if you don't like as many veggies as I do put a little bit less. You know, it's a stew. Do what you want, you're the boss. Now what I've got here is a few tablespoons of olive oil And I've got this going over high heat And this is so important because a big big part of what is gonna give us a lot of flavour is that we are actually going to caramelize the meat. We're gonna brown it really well on all side, and we're gonna do that by making sure we have got the olive oil really nice and hot. I'm just gonna wait a couple of seconds because I don't think it's hot enough I want it to smoke a little bit. Now, really important, we're gonna season it with salt and pepper And then I'm just gonna let this cook for about five to seven minutes I want all sides to be really dark, caramelized. So, you do that. Cook it for however long it takes until it's all browned. My meat is nicely browned, and I'm just taking it out of the pan here And I'm gonna leave in all those remaining meaty juices Now if you want you can drain them and then just add some fresh olive oil But I don't want, I don't like to do that because there's so much- He didn't wanna be a part of this party! So he flew away. Oh well. See I don't think that draining that makes sense because there's so much flavour in there and I wanna use that so I am, so to this I'm gonna add in all of my veggies. Carefully, so they don't go overboard. Woah Just like that. And then I'm gonna season these with salt and a little pepper By seasoning every element of the dish it comes out really well-rounded Give that a nice bit of black pepper And I'm gonna let these cook for about five minutes or so Or until they start to develop some colour. And that's what you're looking for when it comes to your veggies. Now to this you're going to add in some flour Because you need to develop a thickening agent So that your beef stew is stew and not soup. So, I'm gonnna sprinkle in some flour And then what I'm going to do is I'm going to stir constantly for about two minutes Or until I've cooked out that raw flour taste. Now to that I'm gonna add in some red wine And I'm gonna just give this a good stir Scrape off the bottom of any brown bits because that's all good flavour And then you're just gonna let it reduce for a minute. Add a new tomato paste. Just give that a stir, and at this point we're gonna put in oops! Gonna put in you're beef stock And make sure when you buy beef stock at the store you buy one that's reduced sodium, or low sodium Because you don't want, you know, a lot of salt that's gonna overpower your dish and you're gonna end up throwing the whole thing away. And you're gonna put in your herbs, and for the bay leaves you can use fresh or dried whatever you've got, I always have dried on hand so I choose to use the dry. And now you're just gonna bring this up to the boil, and then we're gonna put in the meat. You just wanna slide the browned meat back in give it a stir and put your lid on turn it down to low, and let it cook for two and a half hours. And then just, you know, come check on it give it a little tlc And for two and a half hour you're a free woman! My beef stew cooked for about two and a half hours, covered, on low Now, I took the lid off turn the heat up to about medium-high And now I'm gonna add in my peas that I've been defrosting So they're nice and tender. And they're only gonna need about three minutes Just to warm all the way through, and this is the perfect time for you to taste it. And adjust the seasoning, and to get rid of the bay leaves because they never get soft. So just let it cook for a couple of minutes and then we'll serve it up. It's looking good, I'm just gonna turn it off. And that smells, like you would not believe how good that smells. It's amazing, it's really thick It's got good colour It's what beef stew should be. Now you can just ladle it up It's perfect! I don't like when beef stew has got a lot of liquid Because then it's beef soup, not beef stew I'll give this a taste.. I'll get a piece of the meat and some of the sauce Mmm, that's good! If that's not gonna nurse me back to health then nothing else can And like I said, you can put this- What I do, I mean it's my husband and I And this is a big part of it So what I do is I take it, And I put it into a freezer safe zip lock bag And i portion it out for two people, put it in the freezer That way, if it's like the middle of the week or you don't have time to make dinner or you're craving something that takes a long time to cook and you just don't have the time you have it in portions and you can defrost it in, like, minutes! That's it! I hope you've enjoyed spending time with me go to www.laurainthekitchen.com to get the recipe, and I'll see you in the next one! Bye bye!
