Hearty Beef Stew
Chuck browned properly, then braised low with red wine, stock and root vegetables until the meat gives way under a spoon. The whole dish rests on how seriously you take the first ten minutes.
Photograph credit: Beef stew at Ben.z - Roland in Vancouver (021) by roland · CC0 1.0 · Flickr
The Method for Hearty Beef Stew
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Pat the beef completely dry, season it, and toss in the flour until lightly coated.
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Heat the oil in a heavy casserole and brown the beef hard in three uncrowded batches, 5 minutes each, until dark on at least two sides. Set aside.
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Lower the heat, add the onions with a splash of water to lift the fond, and cook 8 minutes.
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Add the garlic for 1 minute, then the tomato purée and cook 2 minutes until it darkens.
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Pour in the wine, bring to the boil and scrape the base completely clean. Simmer 4 minutes.
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Return the beef with the stock, Worcestershire, thyme, bay, salt and pepper. The liquid should just cover the meat.
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Cover and braise at 150°C / 300°F for 2 hours.
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Add the carrots, parsnips and potatoes, and cook 60 minutes more, uncovered for the last 20 to reduce the gravy.
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Rest 10 minutes, skim any fat, check the seasoning, and scatter with parsley.
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What Can Go Wrong
- Dry meat and a hot pan. Wet beef steams grey and you lose the entire flavour foundation.
- Chuck or shin, never lean steak. Collagen is what makes stew meat tender rather than dry.
- Made a day ahead and reheated, it is measurably better — and the fat lifts off cleanly when cold.
Common Substitutions & Variations
- An eighth of a teaspoon of garlic powder per clove is the stand-in usually given when you are out of fresh garlic; it will not brown the same way, and it burns easily, so add it with the liquid.
About This Recipe
Browning is not about sealing in juices, which is a myth — it is about the Maillard reaction creating hundreds of new flavour compounds that the braising liquid then dissolves. Adding the root vegetables halfway through means they finish tender rather than dissolving into the gravy over three hours.
To Go With It
Crusty bread or buttered mash · A robust red such as a Malbec · Buttered greens
Sides from the same cuisine on this site: Buttermilk Biscuits, New York Bagels, Skillet Cornbread.
Leftovers
Refrigerate up to 4 days and freeze 3 months. Reheat gently on the hob or at 150°C / 300°F for 35 minutes.
Hearty Beef Stew Nutrition
No nutrition figures are given for this recipe: they cannot be worked out reliably from its ingredient list (some ingredient lines cannot be read). Why some recipes have none.
Your notes on this recipe
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published ; last changed .
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