Read The Cook's Illustrated Cookbook Online
Authors: The Editors at America's Test Kitchen
Tags: #Cooking
The Cook's Illustrated Cookbook (53 page)
SERVES 6 TO 8
Try to find beef that is well marbled with white veins of fat. Meat that is too lean will come out slightly dry. For the red wine in this stew, we like Cabernet Sauvignon.
1 | (3-pound) boneless beef chuck-eye roast, pulled apart at seams, trimmed, and cut into 1¹⁄ |
Salt and pepper | |
3 | tablespoons vegetable oil |
2 | onions, chopped coarse |
3 | garlic cloves, minced |
3 | tablespoons all-purpose flour |
1 | cup full-bodied red wine |
2 | cups low-sodium chicken broth |
2 | bay leaves |
1 | teaspoon dried thyme |
1 | pound small red potatoes, peeled and halved |
4 | large carrots, peeled and sliced ¹⁄ |
1 | cup frozen peas, thawed |
¹⁄ | cup minced fresh parsley |
1.
Heat oven to 300 degrees. Season beef with 1¹⁄
2
teaspoons salt and 1 teaspoon pepper; toss to coat. Heat 2 tablespoons oil over medium-high heat in Dutch oven. Brown meat on all sides in 2 batches, about 5 minutes per batch, adding remaining 1 tablespoon oil if necessary. Remove meat and set aside. Add onions to now-empty pot and cook until almost softened, 4 to 5 minutes. Reduce heat to medium and add garlic; cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in flour; cook until lightly colored, 1 to 2 minutes. Add wine, scraping up browned bits on bottom of pot. Add broth, bay leaves, and thyme and bring to simmer. Add meat and return to simmer. Cover and place in oven and simmer 1 hour.
2.
Remove pot from oven, add potatoes and carrots, cover, and return to oven. Simmer until meat is just tender, about 1 hour. Remove stew from oven. (At this point, stew can be cooled to room temperature, then refrigerated for up to 3 days. Bring to simmer, then remove from heat before proceeding.)
3.
Stir in peas and let stand 5 minutes. Stir in parsley, season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve. (Stew can be refrigerated for up to 2 days.)
Instead of the frozen pearl onions, you can use an equal amount of fresh pearl onions that have been blanched, peeled, and steamed.
Before preparing beef, cook 4 slices bacon, cut into small dice, in Dutch oven until browned and crisp. Transfer bacon to paper towel–lined plate, reserving fat. Substitute fat for oil when browning meat. Return bacon to Dutch oven with broth, bay leaves, and thyme. Omit potatoes, carrots, and peas. Heat 2 tablespoons of reserved fat in large skillet until hot and add 1 pound white mushrooms, quartered; cook over high heat until browned, 5 to 7 minutes. Add 1 cup frozen pearl onions, thawed, and cook until lightly browned, about 3 minutes. When meat is almost tender, 2 to 2¹⁄
2
hours, add mushrooms and pearl onions to stew. Cover and return to oven. Cook until meat and pearl onions are tender, 20 to 30 minutes longer. Stir in parsley, season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve.
Substitute 1 cup canned diced tomatoes with their juice for 1 cup of broth. Add two 2-inch strips orange zest with broth. Substitute herbes de Provence for thyme. Omit potatoes, carrots, and peas. Stir in 1 cup pitted kalamata olives in step 3, cover stew, and let stand 5 minutes. Stir in parsley, season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve.
Add 1 tablespoon tomato paste after cooking flour. Substitute 1 cup canned diced tomatoes for 1 cup broth and add 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon and ¹⁄
8
teaspoon ground cloves with broth, bay leaves, and thyme. Omit potatoes, carrots, and peas. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in medium skillet; add 1 cup frozen pearl onions, thawed, and cook until lightly browned, about 3 minutes. When meat is almost tender, 2 to 2¹⁄
2
hours, add pearl onions and ¹⁄
3
cup currants to stew. Cover and return to oven. Cook until meat and pearl onions are tender, 20 to 30 minutes longer. Stir in parsley, season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve.
WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS
We wanted a rich-tasting but approachable beef stew with tender meat, flavorful vegetables, and a rich brown gravy—and we planned to take a no-holds-barred attitude toward the ingredient list. To begin, we chose a tasty cut of beef, chuck, and browned it properly, taking care not to crowd the meat in the pan. Along with traditional stew components like onion, carrots, garlic, red wine, and chicken broth, we added glutamate-rich ingredients like tomato paste, salt pork, and anchovies. Glutamates are compounds that give meat its savory taste and they contribute considerable flavor to the dish. To mimic the luxurious, mouth-coating texture of beef stews made with homemade stock (provided by the collagen in bones that is transformed into gelatin when simmered), we included powdered gelatin and flour. Potatoes, pearl onions, and peas rounded out our rich-tasting, yet updated, take on beef stew.
See “TRIMMING A CHUCK-EYE ROAST” illustrations that follow recipe.
SERVES 6 TO 8
Use a good-quality, medium-bodied wine, such as a Côtes du Rhône or Pinot Noir, for this stew. Try to find beef that is well marbled with white veins of fat. Meat that is too lean will come out slightly dry. You can use 4 pounds of blade steaks, trimmed, instead of the chuck-eye roast. While the blade steak will yield slightly thinner pieces after trimming, it should still be cut into 1¹⁄
2
-inch pieces. Look for salt pork that is roughly 75 percent lean.
2 | garlic cloves, minced |
4 | anchovy fillets, rinsed and minced |
1 | tablespoon tomato paste |
1 | (4-pound) boneless beef chuck-eye roast, pulled apart at seams, trimmed, and cut into 1¹⁄ |
2 | tablespoons vegetable oil |
1 | large onion, halved and sliced ¹⁄ |
4 | carrots, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces |
¹⁄ | cup all-purpose flour |
2 | cups red wine |
2 | cups low-sodium chicken broth |
4 | ounces salt pork, rinsed |
2 | bay leaves |
4 | sprigs fresh thyme |
1 | pound Yukon Gold potatoes, cut into 1-inch pieces |
1¹⁄ | cups frozen pearl onions, thawed |
2 | teaspoons unflavored gelatin |
¹⁄ | cup water |
1 | cup frozen peas, thawed |
Salt and pepper |
1.
Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 300 degrees. Combine garlic and anchovies in small bowl; press with back of fork to form paste. Stir in tomato paste and set aside.
2.
Pat meat dry with paper towels. Do not season. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in Dutch oven over high heat until just starting to smoke. Add half of beef and cook until well browned on all sides, about 8 minutes. Transfer beef to large plate. Repeat with remaining beef and remaining 1 tablespoon oil, leaving second batch of meat in pot after browning.
3.
Reduce heat to medium and return first batch of beef to pot. Stir in onion and carrots and cook, scraping bottom of pan to loosen browned bits, until onion is softened, 1 to 2 minutes. Add garlic mixture and cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add flour and cook, stirring constantly, until no dry flour remains, about 30 seconds.
4.
Slowly add wine, scraping bottom of pan to loosen browned bits. Increase heat to high and simmer until wine is thickened and slightly reduced, about 2 minutes. Stir in broth, pork, bay leaves, and thyme. Bring to simmer, cover, transfer to oven, and cook for 1¹⁄
2
hours.
5.
Remove pot from oven; remove and discard bay leaves and salt pork. Stir in potatoes, cover, return to oven, and cook until potatoes are almost tender, about 45 minutes.
6.
Using large spoon, skim excess fat from surface of stew. Stir in pearl onions; cook over medium heat until potatoes and onions are cooked through and fork slips easily in and out of beef (meat should not be falling apart), about 15 minutes. Meanwhile, sprinkle gelatin over water in small bowl and allow to soften for 5 minutes.
7.
Increase heat to high, stir in softened gelatin mixture and peas; simmer until gelatin is fully dissolved and stew is thickened, about 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste; serve. (Stew can be refrigerated for up to 2 days.)
To ensure consistent texture and flavor, avoid packaged stew meat (which can include odd-size pieces from all over the cow) and start with a chuck roast.
1.
Pull roast apart at its major seams (marked by lines of fat and silver skin). Use knife as necessary.
2.
With a sharp chef’s knife or boning knife, trim off the thick layers of fat and silver skin.
WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS
Daube Provençal, also known as daube niçoise, has all the elements of the best French fare: tender beef, a luxurious sauce, and complex flavors. But it usually ends up as beef stew with a few misplaced ingredients. We wanted to translate the flavors of Provence—olive oil, olives, garlic, wine, herbs, oranges, tomatoes, mushrooms, and anchovies—to an American home kitchen, with ingredients that married into a robust but unified dish. We started with our reliable set of techniques for turning tough but flavorful beef into a tender stew and then concentrated on refining the complex blend of ingredients. We chose briny niçoise olives, bright tomatoes, floral orange peel, and the regional flavors of thyme and bay. A few anchovies added complexity without a fishy taste, and salt pork contributed rich body. A whole bottle of wine added bold flavor and needed just a little cooking to tame its raw bite. Finally, to keep the meat from drying out during the long braising time, we cut it into relatively large 2-inch pieces.
