Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Hectic stew
Things be jumping in the next few days. I’m in the OR tomorrow, bunch of middlin’ cases, then it’s down to LA for Part II of Kize College. I spend Wednesday night in Pasadena, Thursday listening to speakers, back here Thursday night. Friday morning, I’m doing a big case in the OR, then patients in the afternoon. Busy, busy week.
So I’m trying to figure out different things to do with beef stew. Aside from the usual mushrooms, celery, onions, bell pepper, and garlic (and red wine, tomato sauce, bay leaves, etc.), what can I do to make the whole thing jump? I suppose I could google it and look for variant recipes. I make a good beef stew (or so I’m told — I can’t sample it, thanks to my vile beef allergy), but I suspect it’s the same old same old.
D.
What about some sort of Cubano pork stew with black beans, cumin, and cilantro?
Not exactly a stew, but still a quite yummy thick soup, Armenian red lentil soup? The recipe I found on the internet had lemon juice and a few dried apricots plus fabulous spices (which I can’t remember now). The soup always gets rave reviews!
Hope your week goes well!
Two things that make beef stew gooooood.
1. A red roux. I like to make a dark red roux for mine. It gives the stew a rich nutty depth. Plus it’s butter. How can you go wrong?
2. A little bit of habanero pepper sauce. Not enough to taste. In a standard stew with 1 lb of meat, I put in about 5-10 drops of sauce. With good habanero sauce, this is enough to produce a little tingle at the back of the throat after a few mouthfuls. It just brightens the stew up.
Skip the celery and basil leaves and use plenty of paprika and dill (dillweed, not dillseed) instead for a goulasch-style meal. It’s a family favourite here.
Sounds like the beginnings of boeuf en daube provençale. There are so many variations to this dish, but if you’re not a french cooking purist*, Martha Stewart has a pretty good recipe for it here http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/daube-de-boeuf-provencal The olives, orange zest and bouquet garni add a lot of interest.
*pretentious Francophile.
I have a really good recipe for Georgian beef stew (which, now that I think of it, I haven’t made in a really long time. Guess what’s now on the menu this weekend) that uses fenugreek, tamarind paste and walnuts (hey, how apropos!). I’ll see if I can dig it up for you.
Thanks, folks! These are great ideas, especially the ones that sound like tagine.
I knew I could count on you 🙂
Hey, I posted 2 links to recipes, but it didn’t show up! Your spam filter obviously has something against Georgian beef stew!