How to Cook Stewing Beef
On a meat chart, stewing beef most often appears in the category of "other cuts," which includes ground beef, beef for kabobs, cube steak, and cuts for stir-frying. These pieces of meat can come from almost any part of the steer, but most commonly they originate in the tougher sections, like the chuck, plate, flank, and round.
If you buy stewing beef already trimmed and packaged, you have no way of knowing exactly which part of the steer it came from, so it's best to err on the side of caution when you cook it. Most recipes for beef stewing meat call for braising it, which means the meat cooks slowly in liquid over low heat for quite a while.
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Things You'll Need
- Stewing beef Salt and pepper to taste Butter, olive or vegetable oil, or combination A large, heavy pot with a lid, big enough to hold all the beef and the liquid Kitchen tongs Salt and pepper Your choice of cooking liquids--beef stock, water, wine, or a combination--enough to barely cover the browned meat in the pan
Instructions
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Braising Stewing Beef
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Start by drying the beef cubes on paper towels, salt and pepper lightly, and then brown in hot fat over moderately high heat. You can use butter or oil, but if you choose butter, you'll have to watch it closely to make sure it doesn't scorch. Adding about a half teaspoon of olive or vegetable oil to the pan along with each tablespoon of butter you use will raise the smoking point of the fat enough to avoid this problem.
Brown the cubes a few at a time, making sure they don't touch one another in the pan. If they touch, the meat will steam rather than brown. As they brown, move them to a clean bowl or plate and put the next batch into the hot pan. -
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When they're all nicely browned, put them back into the pan and pour in the cooking liquid. Heat the liquid to a bare simmer, turn the heat down, put the lid on the pan, and let the meat cook slowly for about an hour. At that point, taste a piece of the beef to see if it's tender. Many braises call for simmering the meat for two hours or longer, so don't be discouraged if it's not right the first time you taste it. Just make sure it's simmering nicely, put the lid back on, and leave it to work its own magic.
You can vary this basic approach by rolling the meat in seasoned flour before browning it, by adding diced or crushed tomatoes and their juices to the cooking liquid, and/or by putting the covered pan into the oven for the rest of the cooking time. Whatever you do, however, there should only be enough liquid to barely cover the meat. -
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Once the meat is done, you can add whole small carrots, pearl onions, cubed potatoes, and/or sauteed mushrooms to the mixture, which is now a hearty soup or a stew, depending on the thickness and viscosity of the sauce.
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If there's too much liquid in the braising dish when the beef is done, take the meat out and then boil the liquid down on the stove top. You can also thicken it with a slurry of flour and water, or with beurre manié, which is equal parts softened butter and flour, stirred together to form a paste. Unlike the slurry, which can yield unpredictable results, beurre manié will produce a perfectly smooth sauce with no lumps. Just be sure to cook it for several minutes, to eliminate any raw-flour taste.
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Tips & Warnings
Braises pair naturally with good French or sourdough bread, soft or fried polenta or wedges of hot cornbread, or wide egg noodles. A green salad and an inexpensive red wine or beer are all you need to add to have a soul-satisfying meal.
Braises are easy, but they aren't fast, so plan for your beef to cook for at least an hour. Most likely, it will take longer than that.
