Irenes Beer Stew Recipes

Steps:

• Cook onions in 2 tablespoons oil in a 6- to 8-quart ovenproof heavy pot over moderate heat, stirring frequently, until lightly browned, about 30 minutes. Add garlic and cook, stirring, 5 minutes.
• Preheat oven to 325°F.
• Combine flour, salt, and pepper in a large bowl. Pat beef dry and toss with flour mixture. Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a large heavy skillet until hot but not smoking, then brown beef in batches, adding as browned to onions and adding more oil to skillet as necessary.
• Add soy, Worcestershire, and steak sauces, bay leaves, thyme, and enough beer to pot to just cover beef and onions, then bring to a simmer. Cover pot and braise stew in middle of oven, stirring in brown sugar after about an hour if desired, until meat is tender, about 2 hours.
• Season stew with salt and pepper.

Steps:

• Place the beef in a bowl with red wine, garlic, and bay leaves. Place in the refrigerator and marinate overnight.
• The next day, preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.
• Combine the flour, 1 tablespoon salt, and 1 tablespoon pepper. Lift the beef out of the marinade with a slotted spoon and discard the bay leaves and garlic, saving the marinade. In batches, dredge the cubes of beef in the flour mixture and then shake off the excess. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large pot and brown half the beef over medium heat for 5 to 7 minutes, turning to brown evenly. Place the beef in a large oven-proof Dutch oven and continue to brown the remaining beef, adding oil as necessary. (If the beef is very lean, you'll need more oil.) Place all the beef in the Dutch oven.
• Heat another 2 tablespoons of oil to the large pot and add the onions, carrots, mushrooms, and potatoes. Cook for 10 minutes over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Add the garlic and cook for 2 more minutes. Place all the vegetables in the Dutch oven over the beef. Add 2 1/2 cups of the reserved marinade to the empty pot and cook over high heat to deglaze the bottom of the pan, scraping up all the brown bits with a wooden spoon. Add the chicken stock, rosemary, sun-dried tomatoes, Worcestershire sauce, 1 tablespoon salt, and 2 teaspoons pepper. Pour the sauce over the meat and vegetables in the Dutch oven and bring to a simmer over medium heat on top of the stove. Cover the pot and place it in the oven to bake it for about 2 hours, until the meat and vegetables are all tender, stirring once during cooking. If the stew is boiling rather than simmering, lower the heat to 250 or 275 degrees F.
• Before serving, stir in the frozen peas, season to taste, and serve hot.

Steps:

• Coat the beef cubes with the flour and add them along with the onions and cooking oil into the pot.
• Cook this over a medium heat until the onions are softer (almost see-through) and don't worry about the flour turnig into a paste on the bottom of the pot the next step will see to that- just don't burn it.
• Add the beer, beef/lamb stock and vegetable stock and stir until the bottom of the pot is clean.
• Add the tomato paste/sauce, the nutmeg and some salt and pepper to taste. The more pepper you add to the stew the hotter it will be.It is actually quite good at a medium spicy level. You can also add some dried herbs if you like.
• Bring the mixture to a boil.
• Turn the heat down and simmer at a low heat, stirring occasionally, for at least 1 hour.\ (You can't really overcook a stew.)
• Add the vegetables (green beans, carrots and potatoes) and bring it all back to a boil- you can add as many vegetables as you like just use water to cover them if they stick out of the liquid in the pot. The more potatoes you add, the better the stew will be on it's own.
• Simmer on a low heat for at least another hour (remember, you can't overcook a stew), stirring occasionally.
• If, after an hour you find that your stew is too juicy, you can take the lid off and try to steam away some of the liquid or, for a quick fix, add a little cornstarch mixed with water to thicken it up (the directions for how to do this should be on the pack.)
• Serve with rice, or as is if you have added a lot of potatoes.

Steps:

• Cook and stir bacon in a heavy skillet over medium-high heat until bacon is browned and crisp, 3 to 4 minutes. Turn off heat and transfer bacon into a large stew pot, reserving bacon fat in the skillet.
• Season beef chuck cubes generously with 1 teaspoon salt and black pepper to taste. Turn heat to high under skillet and sear beef pieces in the hot fat on both sides until browned, about 5 minutes. Place beef in stew pot with bacon, leaving fat in skillet. Turn heat down to medium; cook and stir onions in the retained fat in the skillet until lightly browned, 5 to 8 minutes; season with a large pinch of salt.
• Cook garlic with onions until soft, about 1 minute; pour beer into skillet and stir with a wooden spoon, scraping up and dissolving any browned bits of food into the liquid. Pour cooking liquid from skillet into the stew pot. Stir in tomato paste, thyme sprigs, carrots, celery, sugar, 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, and enough chicken broth to cover.
• Bring stew to a gentle simmer, stirring to combine; reduce heat to low and cover pot. Simmer stew until beef is fork-tender, about 2 hours. Stir stew occasionally and skim fat or foam if desired.
• Remove cover and raise heat to medium-high. Bring stew to a low boil and cook until stew has slightly thickened, 15 to 20 minutes. Remove and discard thyme sprigs and adjust salt and pepper to taste.
• Arrange mashed potatoes in a ring in a serving bowl; ladle stew into the center of the potatoes.