Using stewing beef for a 'sweet & sour'?

socks_uk

I bought a batch of stewing beef to make stews with which are going down well for easy meals prepared in advance but I was wondering if anyone had ever used stewing beef to make sweet& sour?
I know it's traditionally made with chicken or pork but was hoping someone can either prevent me from wasting some beef if it doesn't work or tell me how good it is! I have both a slow cooker or a cast iron stockpot and I have got 2 jars of smartprice sweet & sour and can add carrots, onions, celery, mushrooms... I think I've even got a tin of bamboo shoots and a tin of water chestnuts in the back of the cupboard.

I guess I fancy sweet & sour but not enough to add another car on the icy roads if it's not essential to go out.

Shame we don't have a 'recipe section' on MSE although I do use 'recipezaar' which is a global recipe website.

Thanks in advance!

ubamother

The problem I think would be how tough it might be - I would suggest that if you cut it quite thinly across the grain, so you had strips rather than cubes or pieces that would help. If you could marinate it first that would help - maybe in an acid based marinade - lemon juice would be OK I would think in sweet and sour. I've only ever done sweet and sour as a stirfry so can't advise on cooking it slowly.

socks_uk

ubamother wrote: »

The problem I think would be how tough it might be - I would suggest that if you cut it quite thinly across the grain, so you had strips rather than cubes or pieces that would help. If you could marinate it first that would help - maybe in an acid based marinade - lemon juice would be OK I would think in sweet and sour. I've only ever done sweet and sour as a stirfry so can't advise on cooking it slowly.

Thanks for your thoughts ubamother. I have used jars of sweet & sour in the slow cooker with both chicken and pork and I don't think there would be a problem with the cooking side of things... it's more the flavour of it.

I've got to make my mind up soon as I'm off in the kitchen soon with Jonathan Ross to make stew/sweet & sour!

Psykicpup

I've used stewing beef as stir-fry before twice, once it seemed to cook out a lot of water & poached itself really so I was glad I cooked it before adding the veg, and the other time it cooked beautifully & tasted wonderful & was really tender. I think different places use different 'cuts' to be stewing steak so that will be a definate factor.:rolleyes:
The one thing I would say is that I am not sure if the flavour of sweet & sour would go with beef so I would do the veg in the sweet & sour but maybe make up a satay sauce for the beef?There is a great satay sauce recipe on here somewhere I believe thats really easy to do & I would expect you have all the ingredients in the stockcupboard :A
I will see if I can find the recipe for the satay but I bet someone will beat me to it :rotfl:

Psykicpup

Hey found it!:T
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=165139&highlight=satay - I have used this for beef so I know it works