This is a particularly fine dish to make when you’ve got some good stewing beef but no stock – the stout makes a good substitute (though arguably, half stout, half stock would be even better). It’s also a dish where mushrooms – too often thrown into a stew without much thought – really come into their own.
Rate this recipe:- 20 mins
- 2-3 hours
- 6-8
- 1.5kg chuck or stewing beef or shin (boneless weight), trimmed and cut into generous chunks
- 250g pancetta or thick streaky bacon (page 00), cut into slightly smaller cubes than the beef
- 50g butter or dripping, plus a little butter for cooking the mushrooms
- 500g baby onions, peeled but left whole
- Up to 50g plain flour, seasoned with salt and pepper
- 1 litre stout, such as Murphy’s
- 2 bay leaves
- A sprig of thyme
- A few stalks of parsley
- 250g button mushrooms
- 250g flat open-cup mushrooms, sliced about 5mm thick
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Heat the butter or dripping in a large frying pan and brown the pancetta or streaky bacon until the fat runs. Transfer to a large casserole or saucepan. In the same fat in the same frying pan, gently fry the baby onions, shaking occasionally, until they are lightly browned all over. Transfer to the casserole. Toss the beef in the seasoned flour, shaking off the excess, and brown it in the same pan, in batches, transferring it to the casserole when it is nicely coloured.
Now pour some of the stout into the pan to deglaze it, scraping any residue from the base of the pan with a wooden spatula and tipping it all into the casserole. Pour in the rest of the stout, adding a little water only if needed to cover the meat. Add the herbs, tied into a bouquet garni, and season with salt and pepper. Bring to the boil, then set to simmer very gently, with the lid on but slightly ajar.
Cook the stew for about 2 hours for chuck or stewing steak, more like 3 hours for shin, until the meat is completely tender. Add a little hot water if the meat is starting to get exposed and dry out. The mushrooms go in about 1 hour before the end. Sweat them gently in a little butter till the juices have run out of them and they have ‘tightened’. Add, along with the juices, to the casserole – the juices will help prevent the stew drying out.
Serve with either herb dumplings, cooked in the stew for the last 45 minutes, or creamy mashed potatoes, or both!
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Getting worried about this stew - nearly 1 1/2 hours in to the cooking time and stew is tasting very bitter. I plan on using it in a pie tomorrow evening. How can I rescue my aberdeen angus beef??? Will the bitterness go away if I cook for the full 2 1/2 hours? Will it be overcooked if I then cook it for a further hour as a pie??? Many thanks for any help!