Slow’s Beef Stew

Cooking again to relieve stress! My 1st attempt at stewing something and it is a success! 😀

For whatever reason, I just decided that I wanted to cook something. Perhaps it was to take my mind away from the enormous stress and piles of daily work on top of projects that need to run. Seriously, M.A.D is the word. 😛 Got PB to drive me to a supermarket after our late dinner and after yesterday, I know where are the 24hr supermarkets in Singapore! 😛  Never knew that there were so many supermarkets that are opened throughout the night!

Decided to make this dish as I chanced upon the beef cubes on the supermarket shelf. It was sitting there and baiting me with beautiful colour and texture. The label “beef for stewing” was all it takes for me to grab a basket and start gathering all the ingredients required to make the stew. I had a recipe kept with me for the longest time that I wanted to try but never got down to trying and this seems to be the best of time! 😛

This was the recipe that I kept in my phone and is used to get the ingredients to make the Beef Stew though I skipped some of the herbs listed as I do not want to end up with too many unused bottles. I cannot remember the source of this recipe. Looking at the format, it could have been taken from the Sunday times where the readers share their recipe.  It looks easy enough for people who dunno how to cook (like me!) and is probably the reason why it is in my phone! haha

Ingredients from top left: Potatoes, large yellow onions, carrots, celery, beef, beef stock, rosemary and tomato paste.

The ingredients after an hour of shopping and more shopping to hunt down some of them. I had actually took more potatoes and carrots than what is called for as I though that it would be nice to have more “veg” 😛

First, peel and chopped up the potatoes and carrots and cut them into chunks. The same applies for the celery.

You do the same to the large yellow onion. This is one onion that got me tearing. 😛

There is no need for this step but I lightly seared the beef to lock in the juice (something I learnt from TV programs 😀

I started putting everything together after I have prepared my ingredients but you can actually just chopped and throw them into the pot. First in goes the carrots and potatoes chunks.

Next is the beef.

Then the celery and onions go on top of the beef. After that, you add the beef stock such that it just covers the ingredients. Then you add the tomato paste and rosemary and you are ready to let it stew. Above pic is a negative demonstration as my slow cooker was way too small for the ingredients that I was too zealous in putting in. I had to divide them into 2 portions for stewing in the end 😛

6 hours of stewing on high power and some bubbling over of the sauces due to an overfilled pot, my Beef Stew is ready! Looks good right? Sorry for the lack of presentation. I just thought the beef stew should be in its most rustic look. 😛 It tasted good too though I did wonder how the taste will differ if I had added the Worcestershire sauce, thyme and bay leave. Maybe next round and I am contemplating to try it with fresh herbs instead of dried ones too.

My Beef Stew with rice for lunch.

I think my beef stew can beat those I had outside. LOL.  The beef was easily pulled apart, the potatoes, carrots, celery and onions had absorbed all the stock and disappeared in the mouth with minimum chewing. Yums.

The second portion of the stew was turned it into a Beef Stew with Angel Hair Pasta  for dinner. PB gave me an 8/10 for this! Yeah!

This is one dish that ANYONE can make. You just need to get the correct cut of beef and the rest is child’s play. Give it a try if you are allowed to eat and cook beef at home 🙂

Ingredients for Beef Stew reproduced for your convenience:
1) 3 potatoes
2) 2 Carrots
3) 300g beef cubes for stewing
4) 3 Stalks celery
5) 1 Large Yellow onion
6) 600ml beef broth
7) 1 tbs worcestershire sauce
8) 100g tomato paste
9) 1 tsp dried thyme
10) 1 tsp dried rosemary
11) 3 bay leaves
12) salt to taste