The Art of Making Perfect Beef Stew

I’ve been cooking for over 25 years now. One of my first dishes was beef stew. It’s taken me many long years to master the taste, but I have done it. Beef stew, meet perfection.

Being the generous cook that I am, I will share with you my particular secrets. Be aware that every tip is worth many gold coins, weedhopper. Haha! OK OK enough horsing around, here’s how I make perfect beef stew:

1. Cut everything into bite-sized cubes EXCEPT the potatoes.
Potatoes get mushy. Nothing’s worse than chowing down on savory stew only to sink your teeth into potato paste. I use white potatoes with their skins. I cross-cut the palm-sized taters and they boil to perfection in the pot.

2. Don’t pre-sear your meat.
I know, I am bucking the trend. Seared meat is so good, yes– at a barbeque! But it dries it out and the cubes usually taste like battle-hardened, wooden dice. A stew is comfort food, it should be smooth and really savory and it shouldn’t take 10,000 chews to eat through it. Save the seared meat for the cookout.

3. Add everything to the pot all at once.
Some fancy cookbooks recommend that you cook only the beef and onions together and, once these are cooked through, add the vegetables for the final hour. I think this type of stew is more of a mish-mash of disjointed flavors where the individual ingredients all keep their individual flavors. Like any good soup or stew, it’s the combination of all the ingredients cooked together that makes a savory, luxuriant, unique flavor. Just for the record, the ingredients in my basic stew are: beef cubes, white onion, white potatoes with skins, carrots (only a few), rutabaga.

4. Don’t add salt to the pot.
Allow the diners to add their own salt at the table. Potatoes absorb salt while they cook, so you’ll wind up adding more and more salt and wondering why the stew doesn’t taste salty! Skip the salt and let everyone add his own, to taste.

5. Use rutabagas or turnips.
I dislike boring old potatoes/onions/beef stew. I like a little panache. Rutabagas add a lovely light-orange color, tons of vitamins, and a peppy tang that bland potatoes don’t give. I usually go half-and-half with the rutabagas and potatoes, adding one huge rutabaga and 8 or 9 palm-sized white potatoes to the big stockpot.

6. Add a teaspoon or two of horseradish sauce.
Notice I said SAUCE. Not plain horseradish! You can certainly add plain horseradish, but don’t add several teaspoons or you will ruin the stew. I use the creamy horseradish sauce, the kind you spread on bread for sandwiches. It really adds some zip to the stew.

7. Add some leftover Ramen seasoning.
My sons love the instant Ramen noodles packages, but I do limit their use of the heavily-seasoned packets. I usually have a ton of them laying around. They are really great for soups! I only use about half a packet for a huge stew.

8. Use beef broth.
I don’t use straight beef broth, too expensive! Instead, I split it with water. For a huge stew that fills a stockpot, I use about 1 cup of broth and water.

9. Don’t overcook!
I allow my stew to boil on the stove in a big stainless steel crockpot. Three or four hours is sufficient to soften all the ingredients and cook the meat. Don’t allow the stew to boil, either. Once the stew starts to simmer, turn it on LOW and cover the pot. Stir it only once or twice throughout the entire cooking time. Let the stew sit for about 20 minutes after cooking, so the flavors can blend.

10. Serve with fresh bread, not crackers.
Crackers, in my opinion, detract from the soothing, smooth stew experience. A hunk of freshly baked Flax Seed Bread is so perfect.

So this is how I make my stew. Try it, try it, you will see! You will like it, I guarantee!

Chicken Barley Soup

We’re cooking again! After the massive 4-month kitchen renovation, we’re back at the stove. This recipe is perfect for a cool, autumn day. Chicken soup can be bland (which is why I don’t make it very often), but I have found that the Salamida Pinch seasoning makes the big difference. The soup is very savory with it. If you do not have the seasoning, add a dash of Worchestershire sauce and some salt to spice up the soup; or, experiment with your own seasonings.

Chicken Barley Soup
serves 6

5 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into cubes
Olive oil
1 can or 2 cups chicken broth
3 cups fresh water
2 white onions, diced
2 carrots, sliced and chopped
2 celery sticks, sliced
1/2 cup uncooked barley
Salamida Pinch seasoning (optional)
salt

Prepare the chicken. In a skillet, heat up some olive oil. Toss the chicken into the skillet, and saute until the chicken is done and begins to turn a little brown.

Place the contents of the skillet (oil, chicken, and any brown drippings from the pan) into a large stockpot. Add the broth, water, onions, carrots, celery, and seasoning into the pot. Cook on medium-high until the soup begins to boil; then, turn down the heat to allow the soup to simmer.

When the carrots and onions are soft, add the barley. Allow to cook for another 20 minutes or so, until the barley is soft and enlarged. Add salt, and stir.

Serve with fresh garlic bread. Yum! My kids ate this right up. My daughter had also made fresh peach pie, a perfect accompaniment to the soup. It was good to be in the kitchen again.

The Super Speedy Spiedie Wrap

This recipe has probably been invented before. As I was making it, I gloated that perhaps I was concocting something new, but then the realization hit me that spiedies are really, really popular, and people have been making wraps for thousands of years (hello, falafel!)… so maybe I’m having a delusion of grandeur.. but these are SO GOOD!!! I threw these together today for lunches. This is perhaps the easiest and fastest recipe, ever. These would be great for dinner, too, with lots of fruit and finger veggies (like olives, carrots, chickpeas, etc).

One other note: the Salamida Brothers Spiedie marinade is crucial to the recipe. It is STUPENDOUS stuff. The Salamida dudes sent me a free bottle to blog about it (ta daa), but I’ve been using Salamida since I was 15 years old, living in Southern New York where spiedies are a regional dish. The marinade is not expensive, and I only used half a bottle for this recipe (I could have used even less, I discovered). But if you want a wrap that will send people to your feet, kissing them in gratitude, use the Salamida stuff. You won’t regret it! Here in New York, it’s every where at the grocery stores (no grocery store would dare not sell it, there’d be riots!), but if your local area does not have it, you can order online here. And if you place an order, use the discount code SAUCE3 at Spiedie.com, you will get 15% off your order! Coupon code is good until April 1st.

Here goes:

Super Speedy Spiedie Wrap
serves 6

2 to 3 pounds of beef, trimmed of fat
1 large white onion, sliced thickly
sliced red pepper
kale, destemmed and washed
Salamida Brothers Spiedie Marinade

Slice the beef. Thinner is better– I did mine a little too thickly.

Slice the onions(s) (thick slices is better).

Put the meat and onions in an air-tight container. Dump in enough Salamida marinade to cover everything. Stir well. Cover the container and refrigerate, anywhere from 12 to 72 hours.

Take out the meat and onions from the container, and place in a large saucepan. Do not add water or oil to the saucepan! Set the pan on medium-high and allow the meat and onions to sizzle. Discard any remaining marinade.

Allow the meat to cook, about 7-10 minutes. The onions will soften but should not get mushy.

Slice some red peppers and kale and set on a dish. Set some flat bread in a dish. When the meat is done, pile it into a prepared wrap and DEVOUR.

Additional yummies to add to the table for wraps can be: lettuce, spinach, feta cheese, marinated olives, marinated garlic cloves, green peppers, chickpeas, sliced American cheese, and etc. You can do so much with this recipe. It makes a terrific healthy dinner, and it only takes 10 minutes to cook!!! I love it. I think this will be my new favorite recipes. I am “into” kale very much these days. I have always liked it, but I recently realized that it can be purchased at my local grocery store. Yum! It’s SO healthy for you– it’s not exactly a wonder-working adult acne cure, but it has calcium, iron, and protein. I’m going to be growing it fresh on my garden this year, to use as a supplement for my salads.

And by the way, if you don’t want to use beef, you can also use chicken or pork with the Salamida Spiedie marinade. Salamida also makes a nice marinade for chicken, too, which is superb. I am going to be making these all summer long. Yay!

How to Dice an Onion

Onion and garlic dicing/mincing is an art, and it took me several years to get it just right. Now, I can dice an onion like a PRO, and with nary a tear! I took a whole bunch of photos of me dicing an onion, intending to post a long, drawn-out narrative about it. But then I came across this video, and thought “Why not?!” It’s easy! Enjoy!