Time: roughly 1 hour prep, 2 hours to cook in oven. This fills up my dutch oven, so I usually have left overs for days. Cut in half in you’re not feeling eating beef stew for that long or you can freeze some as well.
Ingredients:
- 6oz bacon, cut into sticks
- 3 lbs lean stewing beef (pot roast or chuck roast). Cut into bite sized pieces (roughly 1 inch X 1 inch)
- 4-5 carrots, sliced into rounds
- 1 white onion, sliced into thin strips
- 4-5 stalks celery, cut into bit sized pieces
- 1 bag frozen pearl onions
- 1 bag frozen peas (small)
- roughly 2-3 pounds yukon gold potatoes (cut into bite sized pieces)… amount is really eyeballed based on the ratio of everything else.
- 1 bottle full young red wine (I usually buy beaujolais)
- 3-4 cups beef stock
- 1 tbsp tomato paste
- 4 cloves garlic, mashed
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp pepper
- 2 tbsp flour
- 1/2 tsp thyme
- 1/4 cup cornstarch
Procedure
- Pre-heat oven 350F.
- In a large dutch oven or oven safe pot, brown bacon. When finished remove bacon and set to the side.
- Dry stewing beef and dust with flour. Then brown the outsides in the bacon fat. Remove and keep with bacon.
- Saute the sliced onion, carrots, celery and garlic until fragrant and soft.
- Add meat and bacon back in, add potatoes to the ratio that you prefer (I usually prefer a lot… shocker). Add in bag of pearl onions.
- Pour in whole bottle of wine and beef stock until it reaches just above all of the ingredients. Add in spices, tomato paste, and crumble bay leaf. Heat to boiling.
- Once boiling, transfer to oven and cook for 2-3 hours.
- Last 15 minutes, add peas and a corn starch/water mixture to thicken. Place back in oven until it coats the back of the spoon and peas are cooked through.
- Eat!