Simple Beef Stew

Posted on June 15, 2020

Beef stew is one of those classic recipes that everyone loves to eat, so I decided to make this as easy and flavourful as possible.

If you’re a stay at home mom, I imagine your kids finish school at around 3:30pm but you might have a little one at home that naps sometime between 11am – noon. So, I suggest making this at 12:00pm so that by 2:40pm it’s done and once you pick up your kids from school dinner is already prepared for the family.

A few tips for the cooking:

Don’t ever skimp on the herbs because that’s the thing that creates all the good flavour.
Don’t worry about adding red wine into kids’ food, the alcohol will evaporate once cooked and then you’re just left with the flavour. If you’re not sure, leave it out.
Try to have 20% beef bones and 20% meat (the remaining 60% is the rest of the ingredients) not only do the bones give the stew a rich and deep flavour, it’s also highly nutritious.
If you’re not sure what to do with all of those leftover herbs you can make pesto, tea and I’ve got some other fun ideas – I’ll write a post about this soon!

Simple Beef Stew

Recipe by Nelma

Servings

portions

Cooking time

hours

Ingredients

2kg beef chuck, cubed (this is the shoulder cut)
2 tbsp olive oil
1x medium white onion
2-3x cloves of garlic
1-2x spring onions
1x knob of ginger
1x branch fresh oregano
2x branches fresh lemon thyme
1x branch of fresh peppermint
2x branches of fresh italian parsley
2x fresh lime leaves
1x small pack of baby corn (approx 100g)
1x small pack of snow pea (approx 120g)
2x sticks of celery
2x carrots
3 x diced romain tomatoes
2 tbsps tomato paste
300ml beef stock (fresh is better, but you can use the cubes too)
200ml warm water
100ml red wine (cooking wine or any red wine you’re drinking, optional)

Directions

Heat the cast-iron pot (or any kind of stewing pot) for a second, then add the olive oil.
Once the oil is hot add the meat and fire the meat until it is brown.
Remove the meat from the pot, and transfer it to a bowl and set it aside.
In the same pot add the onion, garlic, ginger and sauté until brown.
Then, add the tomatoes, tomato paste and let it cook for 2 minutes.
Add the meat and the rest of the ingredients including the stock and water (except the baby corn and snow pea).
Cook for 20 minutes and then transfer the pot to the oven at 160C (325F) and cook for approximately 1 hours and 30 minutes.
Once the meat is tender add the baby corn, snow peas and cook for another 10 minutes.