With the cooling temperatures, without any doubt the summer is long gone. This is usually that time of the year when we find ourselves to long for comfort food, something that will warm us up on the inside & satisfy our taste buds as well. I enjoy cooking quite a bit as I find it therapeutic and relaxing. I like to try new things by testing out recipes of my friends or renowned chefs, or just make up my own based on what I have on hand at a moment.
Few weeks ago, after seeing Colly’s tweet, I got cravings for a nice hearty beef stew. Even though this has been a busy week at work, I made sure to find some time and unwind while doing the minimal prep required and then just let all the magic happen on its own. And I have to say, it turned out heavenly, so I figured I’d share my version of the winter stew with few different ingredients.
Ingredients
- 1 pound of beef
- 3 large carrots
- 3 parsnips
- 1 celery root
- 1/2 mushrooms
- 1 leek
- 1 onion
- fresh rosemary
- 1 orange
- 3 tbs of Vegeta, or use vegetable or beef stock cubes
- 1/3 bottle red wine
- fresh parsley
Instructions
- Start with heating up a little bit of oil, add the meat in and keep steering preventing it from burning and sticking to bottom of your pan.
Keep steering for about 5 minutes till all the sides are nicely seared.
- After the beef is nicely browned, add all chopped carrots, parsnips, celery root, as well as mushrooms, leek and onion, and continue steering.
You’ll notice that the vegetables will start releasing juices, so you won’t need to add more oil, even though you might be inclined to do so. - While the meat and vegetables are cooking, get to do some more chopping. This time, chop up your fresh rosemary,
which you add into your freshly made broth.
- Pour the broth with rosemary over the meet and vegetables. I chose to add some red chili pepper flakes for some heat.
- All there is left to do is to add red wine and zest of one orange before you cover the pot and let it cook for at least 3-4 hours, until the beef becomes flakey. You can use this time to just sit down and relax, watch a movie while either finishing that bottle of wine. 🙂
- For a little punch of color, I like to garnish my serving with a little bit of fresh parsley. And that’s all there is to it! Hope you enjoyed it and maybe get creative and put your own spin on such a versatile recipe. 🙂
