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Beef Stew:
2 lbs or 1 KG Rib Eye, Trimmed and cubed, somewhat large but still bite-sized (save trimmings*)
Beef Stock 2-3 12oz Cans and/or Beef Base 2-3 Tbl Sp. (I prefer Beef Base - I'm not sure if Better than Bullion is sold but it's kind of a viscous concentrate that breaks up in water fairly easily.)
5 Cloves Garlic, Whole
3 Carrots, Cleaned
1 Onion, Diced
4 Celery Stalks
1.5 Tbl Sp Salt
1 Tbl Sp Chopped Rosemary (You can use whole sprigs, if you want to get fancy but...)
1 Tbl Sp Parsely
.5-.75 Tbl Sp Sage
.5 - 1 Tbl Sp Pepper
Offsetting for Beef Stock, about 10-12 cups of water
*If you want a little extra fat flavor in your stew, salt the fat trimmings, liberally using the salt you would otherwise season the meat with. Put that fat in a pan and render out all that delicious fat and use that to start the beef. Eat fried fat. Yum!
Otherwise, the beef should have enough fat content to throw it in a dry, hot pan followed shortly with the salt, pepper, and rosemary. Saute, stirring occasionally, until lightly brown, then add carrots, garlic, and onion. Stir it up. It should release some liquid from the carrots, meat, and onion - that's a good thing. Go ahead and throw the celery, parsley and sage in there as soon as the onions are transparent. Put it in your cooker with some water and stir in the beef base. Cover, stirring occasionally for about two to three hours.
Beef should be broken down fairly well.
Oh, and here's a tip - if you're ever working on a stew or a soup with too much salt, peel a potato and throw it in there, whole. The starch in the potato will suck up the salt, over time. I rescued a lobster bisque like that, once.
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Now with extra singles!
my old stuff, not quite up to snuff - but I still dig it - UPDATED 9/23/2012
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