Author Topic: A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....  (Read 12375 times)

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Offline lonestar

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A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....
« on: December 01, 2011, 11:55:34 AM »
Inspired by Ticks step by step turkey awesomeness, I thought I would do a hearty winter stew, step by step, for my fellow DTFers.  I kept it simple, with ingredients available anywhere, I hope you try it and enjoy it.


Ingredients...
1.5 lbs stew meat, I used lamb in mine, but beef is fine. For the adventurous ones, venison and elk would work too.
liberally season meat with salt and pepper, and mix well in one cup flour till well coated....


Dice up...
1 yellow onion
2 stalks celery
3 small yukon potatoes
2 turnips
2 carrots
1/2 bunch thyme
1 sprig rosemary
(fresh herbs are essential to the meal)


2 cartons Swansons beef stock, unsalted...


Get a heavy bottomed stew pot, put about half a cup canola oil, and bring to high. Add the floured stew meat and brown well...


Not quite there yet...


Perfect!!!
Now, reduce the heat to medium and add the carrots, onions, and celery("mire poix" if you want to sound cool) and saute till the onions look translucent...


Then add 1/2 cup red wine, preferably a cabernet or zinfandel and stir well till wine reduces by half.  Now the important part, the pan will have a layer of crud on the bottom, this is called "fond" and is the most important part of the stew.  It is the carmamelized goodness of everything in the pan.  Make sure to scrape as much of it as you can off then add the turnips, potatoes, one tbsp crushed garlic and herbs...


Stir all of this together well till it is nice and coated like so...


Add one and a half of the beef stock, and stir well and bring to a boil...


Reduce heat to a simmer, and cook for at least one hour covered, stirring every five minutes or so, making sure to keep the bottom of the pan clean, and slowly the stew will start to thicken...


If it does not thicken to your liking, you can make a quick roux of butter and flour by melting about half a stick of butter, then adding an equal amount of flour, whisking it in well till you get a thick paste.  Add about half of this to the stew, and stir well.  It should thicken within a couple of minutes.  If you need more, do it again.  Let the stew simmer for another 15 minutes or so, then season.  Good seasoning for this would be about 10 shakes tobasco, 1/4 cup cider vinegar or zest of 1/2 lemon, and salt and pepper.  Add about 2 teaspoons of pepper and 1 tbsp of salt.  Let it go for a minute or so and TASTE!!!!!  If it needs more salt or is a bit blah, add more salt.  Get a sourdough bread round and hollow out like so....


Ladle your delicious stew into the bowl and you have your delicious cold winter's night meal.....

A liberal sprinkling of cheese on top never hurts, but isn't necessary.


Good luck, and happy cooking!!!  :lonestar:


Offline jingle.boy

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Re: A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....
« Reply #1 on: December 01, 2011, 11:59:49 AM »
I demand this thread be archived immediately.

:drool:
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Offline antigoon

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Re: A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....
« Reply #2 on: December 01, 2011, 12:01:04 PM »
That looks delicious. Would there be any adverse effects of swapping the flour with, say, corn starch?

Offline black_biff_stadler

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Re: A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....
« Reply #3 on: December 01, 2011, 12:04:20 PM »
Looks pretty damn good loney. May have to make this soon. Thanks for posting :tup
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Offline lonestar

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Re: A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....
« Reply #4 on: December 01, 2011, 12:09:56 PM »
That looks delicious. Would there be any adverse effects of swapping the flour with, say, corn starch?
Crap, forgot about you gluten guys.  Ignore the flour in the first step with the meat, and just brown the meat on its own.  At the end of the stew, thicken with a slurry of cornstarch and water.  It will be a bit more glossy in texture, but should be fine. :tup

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Re: A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....
« Reply #5 on: December 01, 2011, 12:10:45 PM »
I demand something with winter squash.  Man I love squash.
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Offline bosk1

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Re: A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....
« Reply #6 on: December 01, 2011, 12:10:55 PM »
I demand this thread be archived immediately.

:drool:

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Offline 7StringedBeast

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Re: A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....
« Reply #7 on: December 01, 2011, 12:11:02 PM »
dood you should make a step by step detailed picture cookbook like this.
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Offline bosk1

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Re: A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....
« Reply #8 on: December 01, 2011, 12:12:56 PM »
dood you should make a step by step detailed picture cookbook like this.

Totally.  Since it would be a photo cookbook, you could lay it out in panels like a comic book.  Get Edan to do lots of different cartoon renditions of you, and put one in the corner of the page every few pages or so.  Seriously, that would be awesome.
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Offline GuineaPig

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Re: A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....
« Reply #9 on: December 01, 2011, 12:16:06 PM »
I had stew last night.  It was delicious.
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Offline antigoon

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Re: A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....
« Reply #10 on: December 01, 2011, 12:17:43 PM »
That looks delicious. Would there be any adverse effects of swapping the flour with, say, corn starch?
Crap, forgot about you gluten guys.  Ignore the flour in the first step with the meat, and just brown the meat on its own.  At the end of the stew, thicken with a slurry of cornstarch and water.  It will be a bit more glossy in texture, but should be fine. :tup
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Offline Summers

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Re: A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....
« Reply #11 on: December 01, 2011, 12:19:44 PM »
Similar to our cawl, though swap out the celery and turnips for leek and the meat is usually lamb or beef.  My mother's is gorgeous  :hefdaddy
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Re: A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....
« Reply #12 on: December 01, 2011, 12:20:37 PM »
I had stew last night.  It was delicious.

I had stew tonight.
With dumplings. yeah!

Looks good lonestar :)

Offline AcidLameLTE

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Re: A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....
« Reply #13 on: December 01, 2011, 12:24:26 PM »
Looks amazing. I might make this for my parents when I'm visiting (since they'll have to pay for all the ingredients :neverusethis: )

Offline bosk1

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Re: A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....
« Reply #14 on: December 01, 2011, 12:28:07 PM »
I had stew last night.  It was delicious.

I had stew tonight.
With dumplings. yeah!

Looks good lonestar :)

How do you make dumplings? 
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Re: A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....
« Reply #15 on: December 01, 2011, 12:30:06 PM »
That's very similar to what I do.  I add pearled barley to mine and that makes it nice and thick, and I use burgundy because that's what I usually have on hand.

You forgot the cardinal rule of hot soups...the leftovers are even better!
     

Offline missedthepoint

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Re: A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....
« Reply #16 on: December 01, 2011, 12:48:28 PM »
I had stew last night.  It was delicious.

I had stew tonight.
With dumplings. yeah!

Looks good lonestar :)

How do you make dumplings?

Ok, take 50g of suet, 100g of self raising flour, a pinch of salt and about enough water to fix into a firm yet pliable dough.
Divide the dough into 8 and roll them into balls, add them to your stew. A tight fitting lid is important here as it's the steam that cooks the dumplings. Cook for about 20 mins, yum yum :)

I have to add here that this recipe came from my lovely wife, not me.

« Last Edit: December 01, 2011, 12:54:01 PM by missedthepoint »

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Re: A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....
« Reply #17 on: December 01, 2011, 12:49:35 PM »
*drools*
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Offline lonestar

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Re: A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....
« Reply #18 on: December 01, 2011, 12:56:52 PM »
I had stew last night.  It was delicious.

I had stew tonight.
With dumplings. yeah!

Looks good lonestar :)

How do you make dumplings?

Get a box of Bisquick, follow the dumpling recipe on the side.  When the stew is done, spoon the batter in good sized lumps on top.  Cover and cook for about twenty minutes, on very low heat(if you don't have a thick bottomed pan, don't try, you will burn the stew).  Uncover and put in a 350 degree oven till the tops of the dumplings are brown. :tup

Offline jingle.boy

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Re: A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....
« Reply #19 on: December 16, 2011, 06:20:27 AM »
Made this the other day, and yum yum yum.  Made a couple of substitutions (sweet potato vs turnip), and made a teeny tiny calculation error.  Since I made it at home in the afternoon while I was working, I didn't really have the time to stir every 5 minutes.  So, I figured I would just put it in the slow cooker for a few hours.  Well, turns out it wasn't so 'slow'.  even on low it brought it to a boil, so all the veggies and meat ended up much softer than they should've been.  And now that I've chilled the leftovers, the veggies pretty much crumbled upon re-heating.  Oh well, it was still damn fine.  First time I ever made stew.

Live and learn.  I'll be doing this again next month no doubt.  Seems like a perfect once-a-month winter meal (with leftovers).

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Offline obscure

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Re: A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....
« Reply #20 on: December 16, 2011, 07:31:09 AM »
Marry me  :heart

Offline Super Dude

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Re: A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....
« Reply #21 on: December 16, 2011, 07:35:29 AM »
I love that DTF has so many talented folks. But the DTF chefs are the best of all. :heart
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Re: A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....
« Reply #22 on: December 16, 2011, 08:05:02 AM »
Made this the other day, and yum yum yum.  Made a couple of substitutions (sweet potato vs turnip), and made a teeny tiny calculation error.  Since I made it at home in the afternoon while I was working, I didn't really have the time to stir every 5 minutes.  So, I figured I would just put it in the slow cooker for a few hours.  Well, turns out it wasn't so 'slow'.  even on low it brought it to a boil, so all the veggies and meat ended up much softer than they should've been.  And now that I've chilled the leftovers, the veggies pretty much crumbled upon re-heating.  Oh well, it was still damn fine.  First time I ever made stew.

Live and learn.  I'll be doing this again next month no doubt.  Seems like a perfect once-a-month winter meal (with leftovers).

The first time my mom mad stew, the broth(?) was the consistency of mashed potatos. I'm not sure how she managed this, but it was still delicious.

Offline jingle.boy

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Re: A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....
« Reply #23 on: December 16, 2011, 08:27:01 AM »
Marry me  :heart

I assume you're talking to :lonestar:?
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Offline lonestar

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Re: A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....
« Reply #24 on: December 16, 2011, 09:16:37 AM »
Right on, I'm glad someone tried it out.  Just can't beat a hearty stew on a cold night.

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Re: A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....
« Reply #25 on: December 16, 2011, 09:22:05 AM »
I tried it out too...just before you posted it here :P

It's something I make about once a month, usually when I find stew meat on sale.

and WHY IS LAMB SO FUCKING EXPENSIVE IN THIS COUNTRY?!?!  >:(
     

Offline lonestar

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Re: A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....
« Reply #26 on: December 16, 2011, 09:51:08 AM »
I know, it's through the roof, especially the high end Colorado stuff.

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Re: A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....
« Reply #27 on: December 16, 2011, 10:11:36 AM »
Nice! Looks awesome. :tup
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oh and I will make that!!!
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Offline bosk1

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Re: A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....
« Reply #28 on: December 16, 2011, 10:30:08 AM »
Right on, I'm glad someone tried it out.  Just can't beat a hearty stew on a cold night.

Oh, he's not the only one.  I forwarded a link to the original post to my wife.  Out of the blue, when I got home from work last Friday, this is what was waiting for me:

"The Supreme Court of the United States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie."

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Re: A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....
« Reply #29 on: December 16, 2011, 10:34:02 AM »
bosk, I don't know what's awesomer - that your wife surprised you with a lonestar meal, or that your first thought was to take a photo of it. :lol :metal
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Offline bosk1

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Re: A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....
« Reply #30 on: December 16, 2011, 10:35:37 AM »
I know, right?  :lol

Just a note about that pic, too.  The dutch oven in the background isn't as tiny as it looks compared to the bread bowl.  It's just that the bread bowl was monstrous.  There was probably a gallon of stew in that thing.  Man, I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.
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Re: A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....
« Reply #31 on: December 16, 2011, 10:51:32 AM »
Thanks for sharing that Lonestar..that looks amazing.. my wife cant cook a lick,,the good news I will always be a lean guy...LOL.

But yea..that looks amazing.. and I love a good pot pie, so that looks like it belongs in a nice flakey pot pie crust..
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Re: A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....
« Reply #32 on: December 16, 2011, 10:57:21 AM »
I know, right?  :lol

Just a note about that pic, too.  The dutch oven in the background isn't as tiny as it looks compared to the bread bowl.  It's just that the bread bowl was monstrous.  There was probably a gallon of stew in that thing.  Man, I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.

hehe.... Dutch oven has a totally differing meaning in the Jingle household.  :bosky:
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Re: A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....
« Reply #33 on: December 16, 2011, 11:06:11 AM »
Gotta admit, I always chuckle at the mention of the term "dutch oven".

Offline lonestar

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Re: A Hearty Winter Meal, step by step....
« Reply #34 on: December 16, 2011, 11:28:52 AM »
*giggles like a five year old*