6 Beef Stew Mistakes to Avoid
6 Beef Soup & Stew Mistakes to Avoid
Beef stew in its many varieties, is an ultimate comfort food during those cool winter days. Making a hearty beef stew warms you right up and is usually a big hit with friends and family. All too often, however, what was meant to be a huge hit turns out to be a epic fail. 6 Beef Soup & Stew Mistakes to Avoid addresses some commonly used cooking methods for beef stew that actually detract from the flavor rather than add to it. But I don’t stop there – I have also provided their solutions!
1. Cooking the beef all at once
This will lower the temperature of the pot quickly and prevent it from heating up sufficiently again. Water from the meat will be released and you’ll end up with grey meat rather then the mouth watering brown meat you’re looking for.
- Solution. Cook the beef in batches over medium high heat to get a nice brown sear on all side.
2. Coating the the beef with flour
Another “No-No!” People do this because they feel the flour will help thicken the stew. However, this, too, will prevent the meat from browning. Other times the flour will burn. You also lose a tremendous amount of flavor from the beef not sticking to the pot. You need that browning to build flavor properly.
- Solution. Again, cook the meat in batches without the flour coating. If you want the stew to be thicker, add flour at the final stage of cooking the stew.
3. Not using an acid to cook the meat
I looked at a number of other online beef stew recipes and many, I mean many, of them do not use an acid to cook the meat. I promise you that the meat will still be chewy after 2 hour of braising without an acid.
- Solution. Add an acid. Acidic liquids help to break up the protein strands that make beef tough. Add a little wine, vinegar, lemon juice, or even Worcestershire sauce to your stew. These acids will be what makes the meat soft, tender, and fall apart in your mouth.
4. Cooking the bacon first.
Bacon definitely adds flavor to stews. However, you don’t need to cook everything in the bacon fat to get the bacon flavor. Bacon fat has a low smoke temperature, so it burns easily and quickly. This will leave a rancid flavor in whatever you cook – the veggies, the beef, and the broth.
- Solution. Cook the bacon in a separate skillet. Let it cool, crumble it up, and add it in later. You will still get that added awesomeness of flavor from the bacon, but without the rancid taste.
5. Adding the potatoes too soon
Here is another common stew practice believed to help thicken the stew. The starch from the potatoes will definitely thicken the stew, but at a cost. The potatoes will fall apart, get smaller, and be mush.
- Solution. Add the potatoes in after 1 hour of cooking. Potatoes absorb flavors. So let them cook slowly and absorb the flavors you’ve been building for the past hour and a half. They will stay firm and you’ll enjoy eating them much more. If the stew is not as thick as you’d like it, simply add some flour at the end.
6. Overcooking/under-cooking the vegetables
Some recipes have you cook all the vegetables at the very beginning and they turn out to be so mushy. Other have you add the broth too soon and the vegetable get cooked, but they are boiled rather than sautéed. There is a time and place for both of those methods of cooking these vegetables, but a stew is not one of them.
- Solution. Cook the vegetables in olive oil first but only until they are tender, not overly soft. Typically, when cooking onions, celery, and carrots, you either cook them all at once, or you start the carrots first, then add the onions and celery. But with a stew (or even chicken soup), you want a firmness to your carrots, not to be baby food. So cook the onions and celery first, then add the carrots for only a couple minutes before moving on.
Some Amazing Recipes That You’ll Love!
Now that you have reviewed these 6 Beef Soup & Stew Mistakes to Avoid, here are a couple awesome recipes featured in this post. Give them both a try !