3 Beef Stew is a weird name for a recipe, but it is because this recipe consists of beef stewing cubes, beef bone marrow, and beef shank.
I was having friends over for dinner and I wanted an epically beefy stew. I tell a lie. I picked up beef stewing cubes from the butcher near work, and then got home, and realised that I should probably get more beef. Upon arriving at the shop, saw that they did not have any beef stewing cubes (I didn’t want much more). They had lamb stewing cubes (this came very close to including lamb) or a 1 kilo beef shank. After using the poor shop assistant as a sounding board – I don’t think he really liked it much as it was a very one-sided conversation; I left with more beef.
But this stew is epic. All of the beef, tomatoes, onions, and wine just break down into its self. I served this with a Mushroom Risotto and I still consider this meal one of my pièce de resistance meals.
This meal is best done overnight in the slow cooker so that you have time to prep and it has time to sit after you have made it (you can also check your seasonings afterwards). The marrow will dissolve out of the bones (double check before throwing them out) and so it becomes a lot easier to store afterwards.
If you can’t buy bone marrow, I guess get another beef shank. It will mess with the calorie counts but at least you can make it.
Servings: about 10
Calories per serving: 687
Things you need:
A large slow cooker. And when I say large – I mean and I quote “it is about a 5 to 6 litre slow cooker”. It is my flatmate’s and I guess she has the largest size.
3 Beef Stew Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 kg stewing beef cubes
- 1 kg beef shank
- 3 bone marrow 1/2s
- 2 cans chopped tomatoes
- Red wine (about ¾ of a bottle)
- 4 bay leaves
- 3 onions (quartered)
- 1 head of garlic (chopped into large chunks)
- 150 g golden carrots
- Heavy dose of chervil
- All purpose flour - I haven’t put an amount here because it is basically enough to coat the stewing beef cubes
- Salt and pepper - for the flour
- 1 - 2 beef bouillon cubes (if you need more flavouring at the end. Also check out the reduced salt versions as well, it is not very salty, but in case you are thinking of it)
Directions
- Step 1 There are things to remember when slow cooking stuff – things I did not realise the first time I slow cooked something and it all went HORRIFICALLY wrong.
- Step 2 Always, always, always – brown your meat before putting it in. Always, always, always – use fattier cuts of meat otherwise no matter how long you boil it for, it won’t work. I.e. Chicken breast slow-cooked for 10 hrs becomes a brick.
- Step 3 Prep: Chop all of your vegetables and have them ready. They should be chopped as follows:
- Step 4 Onions: Quartered (you want rather large chunks of these)
- Step 5 Garlic: Again you want them to be fairly large as they will slow cook and you don’t want to lose all of the flavour. You can leave the smaller cloves as whole, and the larger ones in ½. The most time consuming part of this will be to peel them. Don’t do the peeling technique when you slightly bash the garlic clove with a knife as you want to keep them as whole as possible.
- Step 6 Carrots: Just cut the carrots so that they are about 4 sections per carrot, and cut said section into ½. Still somewhat large, but a manageable bite if you want to eat this with a spoon.
- Step 7 Hopefully you own a slow cooker that can go on the hob / stove top. First get your beef shank and leave the meat on the bone. Using tongs and a relatively high heat brown all of the sides of the meat. The tongs make this a lot easier.
- Step 8 Prep the flour and season it with salt pepper, and some of the chervil. Coat your stewing beef cubes in the flour mixture and add to the pan. You want to brown all of the sides. Once they are looking nice and brown add the onions. Again you are mostly just coating them in the flavouring.
- Step 9 Add more chervil, add the garlic. At this point it will be sticking slightly to the bottom. Add a bit of the red wine to deglaze the bottom of the pan. Ensure that you really get all of the stuck flour out of the bottom. Add the chopped tomatoes and more red wine (not all of it). Add the bay leaves.
- Step 10 Now comes the hard part. Add the beef shank in and the bone marrow. You will have to wiggle things around to actually get the meat into the pot and under the juices. Take a look at the texture and decide if you need more red wine. On top, add the chopped carrots.
- Step 11 Put the slow-cooker back into it’s base. Set that bad boy onto low and let it run for 10 hours. After 10 hours, check it, and taste it. I needed to add a bit more salt and pepper, and a beef bouillon cube, this is of course optional. I then put it back on for another hour and it was good.
- Step 12 Let it sit for about an hour to cool and let the fat rise to the top of the mixture. Once it has, use a spoon to skim it off. You will need a bowl for this as it will be quite a bit.
- Step 13 When I prepared this, it was ready in the morning, and I let it sit for the whole day before having it with a dinner party that evening. I do suggest this method. When serving / final storing (i.e. do not remove the bones prior to heating for the dinner) remove the bones.
