Tuesday, January 8, 2013

How to Make A Suprisingly Passable Beef Stew

Go to the supermarket the evening after your first day back at school. Marvel at the stupidity of a gigantic store that has no stewing beef. Make do with stirfry beef. Not as good. You will need:
  • beef
  • potatoes
  • pearl onions
  • carrots
  • beef stock
  • herbs
  • leeks
  • dark beer
Think ahead. You want the stew for dinner tomorrow. Chop the veggies the night before. Not the potatoes though. Blanch the pearl onions so their skins will slip off. Put all the chopped veggies in the fridge overnight.

Get up early next morning. Shake the beef in a bag with some flour, salt and pepper. Brown the beef and the veg with some oil in a pan. Cut up the potatoes. Put it all in the slow cooker, making sure you get all the good stuff out of the pan. Pour stock and dark beer over the meat and veggies. Look at the clock. You're doing well- still time for breakfast before you have to leave for school.

Move the juicer out of the way of the cooker. Somehow manage to get juicer tangled up with slow cooker. Watch in horror as the slow cooker tumbles to the kitchen floor, spilling beef, vegetables, and stock all over the place. Scramble to put spilled stuff back in the cooker as quickly as possible. Spend many precious minutes mopping up kitchen floor so roommates won't slip on greasy gravy. Discover that slow cooker is dented, so that lid no longer fits snugly on top of it. Sigh, and go for the hammer. Try and hammer pot quietly, so roommates won't be awakened. Give up and look at clock. Oh no.

Stuff some bread in the toaster and whip up a salad for lunch. Run to catch your bus.

Come home and find that one of your roommates has actually managed to fix the slow cooker and turn up the heat so that your meal is actually cooking. Think that you will try and be more patient next time this roommate tells you chapter and verse about her latest tv/ theatre audition.Go to the Vietnamese restaurant across the road because it's 3pm and your stew won't be done until 7 and salad isn't enough to get you through the mid-day.

Enjoy a bowl of beef stew late at night. It's kind of salty (you panicked because your last stew tasted of water, so you maybe put in too much stock and cooking wine, but it's better than watery stew). Think that you have a way to go before you master the art of cooking.
Managed to survive an unplanned trip to the floor and still taste okay!

No comments: