Just the weather for stew

tandraig

youre not valleys then helyg! not first language welsh speaking myself - my grandmother was tho! i get the message - I was being pedantic!lmao. my mother-in-law never made stew - it was always soup! but her dad was cornish/yorkshire and her mam english (bristol). whatever - a good stew is a good stew - or cawl - or soup!

my nan or nain was clear to me on cawl - had to be lamb and have leeks!! the other nan never called it cawl but made and almost identical stew!!! lol

WendysWorld

My favourite stew is this:

1lb Stewing Beef cubed
1 tblspoon flour
1 onion chopped
2-3 carrots cut into chunks
1 tblspoon tomato paste
1 clove garlic
pinch cayenne pepper
200 mls guiness (best to have the old-style bottled type)
salt & pepper
oil for frying

First of all mix the cayenne pepper and flour with salt and pepper and toss the beef in it to coat all over. Heat the oil in a frying pan with a lid and fry the meat and onions until the meat is browned. Add tomato paste and garlic and around 3-4 tablespoons of water. Mix well and bring to the boil. Cover and turn down the heat to simmer for a few minutes. Heat oven to 150 degrees C.
Transfer meat mixture to a casserole dish. Add the guinness to the frying pan and bring to the boil, stirring with a spoon to deglaze the pan and loosen all the bits stuck to the bottom. Pour into the casserole dish and add the carrots (and other veg if you have them).
Put casserole in oven and bake for around 3 hours until meat is tender and sauce has thickened. If it gets too thick during cooking you can add a little water. Season during cooking as well.
I presume this can be done in a Slow Cooker but I haven't tried it yet. It's quite low in salt as you don't use stock so very suitable for young children (and the alcohol's all boiled off!)
BM

Happy_Camper_5

We were given a bottle of port that had um, turned. So a generous dollop of that goes in any stew along with worcester sauce. Generally whatever veg we have most of (having a lottie) and some meat. Which meat varies, according to what we need to use next from the freezer, or if it was silly price reduced in asda

Woofles

3 hours :eek: goodness I'd have faded away to nothing.:rotfl:

45 mins tops from start to finish in a pressure cooker, they really are economically, once its up to pressure, 5 mins at most, the heat goes down to the lowest setting.

My mother used the heavy pan to make jam in because it didn't catch and burn so easily and way back when Adam was a lad she used it to sterilise the Kilner jars, but I cannot remember if she did that under pressure or just because it was deep enough to hold plenty of jars and boiling water.

ariba10

A simple quickie the Grandchildren like is Potatoes, Onions with a tin of Corned beef in it.

mum2one

I'm glad I've found this thread, love the ideas.
Invested in a slow cooker, got it in the Argos sale for £10.00, so worth a try, haven't got round to it yet.. x

honeyD

ariba10 wrote: »

A simple quickie the Grandchildren like is Potatoes, Onions with a tin of Corned beef in it.

Oooo! I used to love this as a kid, my Mum would make it every week but now Im vegetarian! Its the only thing I do miss though lol. Once had my cousins here and was feeding the little one and got some on my hand so just put my hand to my mouth to get it off like then I realised what I had done so ran to rinse my mouth :rotfl: Silly me!
I could make it for Husband though.

thistledome

Woofles wrote: »

I usually drop a good glug of Worcester sauce in mine, I know that's a no-no for vegetarians but believe there is vegetarian alternative, Hendersons Relish comes to mind, but I could be wrong.

No, you're right. Hendersons Relish is vegetarian and tastes lovely. I have to get mine from ebay as nobody round here stocks it.

OP, When I make stew I put the usual carrot/celery/onion etc but also whatever is on offer or marked down or just cheap because it's in season. Aduki beans are good too, nice flavour and quicker cooking than some other pulses.

I used to hate Parsnips until hubby roasted some with honey and mustard, they're gorgeous.

babs2008

thistledome wrote: »

No, you're right. Hendersons Relish is vegetarian and tastes lovely. I have to get mine from ebay as nobody round here stocks it.

OP, When I make stew I put the usual carrot/celery/onion etc but also whatever is on offer or marked down or just cheap because it's in season. Aduki beans are good too, nice flavour and quicker cooking than some other pulses.

I used to hate Parsnips until hubby roasted some with honey and mustard, they're gorgeous.

For veggies try Geo Watkins Mushroom Ketchup - from Sains, Tesco or Ocado.

helyg

tandraig wrote: »

youre not valleys then helyg! not first language welsh speaking myself - my grandmother was tho! i get the message - I was being pedantic!lmao. my mother-in-law never made stew - it was always soup! but her dad was cornish/yorkshire and her mam english (bristol). whatever - a good stew is a good stew - or cawl - or soup!

my nan or nain was clear to me on cawl - had to be lamb and have leeks!! the other nan never called it cawl but made and almost identical stew!!! lol

LOL no not valleys, firmly in the middle of Wales. I wasn't being funny about it BTW, just there is always confusion about Cawl as in leeks and lamb and cawl as in any old soup... then you get onto Lobscows which is what North Walians call the leeks and lamb cawl... I think everyone cooks the cawl that their mother taught them, so there is always family variations, on the quiet I'm a fan of a spoonful of Marmite in mine to beef it up a bit but I'm sure that there are generations of my ancestors spinning in their graves at the very thought!