I think I've made a horrible mistake. I'm making a beef stew, and I believe I've used the wrong cut of meat

Come back in 7 hours op and tell us how yummy it was! I love stew but its far too hot here at the minute to make it.

it'll give it a more caramelized flavor that you wouldn't normally get in a crock pot or by stewing meat.

don't listen to this. you don't put fucking sugar in a beef stew. and only put worchestshire/fish sauce after the stew has stewed for a couple hours. you only need to adjust the flavour, and there's no point in doing that when there's still a shitton of liquid volume that you are going to cook off (same with final adjustment to salt pepper and spices). of course you SHOULD HAVE spiced in layers up to that point (including s+p+thyme the beef before searing and s+p+rosemary+bayleaf the mirepoix before sauteeing)

The only benefit of the sugar is to appease the yank palate. They put sugar in everything, and then wonder why they have to wear pants with elasticated waistbands. Sugar in savoury dishes, really?

Yeaaaah, i was a bit skeptical of the sugar thing.
Also, I'm out of have brown sugar.

I like chuck or rump roast. I don't buy them as "chunks" in those packages, cause I don't know what that is...could be eye of round spoiled trimmings, or anything else.

So, next time at the market, buy a whole roast and chunk it yourself into stewing chunks. I like the chunk a little larger than a large tablespoon, they will shrink a bit, and it's nice to tenderly section yourself with your spoon as you eat. Don't be tempted to make them perfectly square, or too small. I think it makes them tougher. I cut a roast about 4 slabs 1-2 inches thick, then again into like planks, and then I do kind of triangles to make sure they are are against the grain.

You will be browning them first, all sides, the large chunks are best because they stay raw in the middle. Dredge in very seasoned flour. Working in batches, brown all sides, with tongs or two forks to flip them. I might skip two sides, if lazy. A browned side will be nice texture later, but this is where you get flavor from the meat, and render out a little fat.

I play with my mood, but if that stew you are making feels bland consider any of the following: can of italian stewed tomatoes or Tbsp of paste, mushrooms, garlic cloves, bay leaf, summer savory, celery, roasted garlic, or do it over rice or egg noodles as a paprikash with dill and sour cream. If your recipe is pretty basic, you can mexicanize it with some lime, chilies and cilantro to salvage this batch too, or drain it and pull it, and taco filling, in a way like barbacoa, or cuban vaca frita

Wow dude, thanks for all of that insight. I'm taking notes. I should have definitely bought a whole piece and cut it myself, but I left work too late and the butcher would have had almost nothing.

And I'm making the stew to go with the "kopytka" I've made yesterday, which are essentially small dumplings based on dough which uses potatoes and cottage cheese as foundation.

They are an amazing gravy delivery system.

>far too hot here at the minute to make it.
Just plug in a crockpot outside desu

>elasticated
Huh, thats a word.

Your dumplings sounds really great. Do they steam in the stew or cooked separately?

Since you want a nice gravy, you can also thicken up your stew with a roux or beurre mane if you don't have time to reduce it.. That last bit of butter does add flavor.

Carrots and potatoes shouldnt be added until an hour or so from the finish time. Onions, garlic and celery (depending on the texture of celery you prefer) should be added at the begining.
With soups and stews you need to know when to add ingrediants.

Somewhat related

The problem I have when I make Japanese curry from the instant bricks is that the cook times are not long enough to tenderize the stew meat. What are you supposed to do in the 30 or so minutes it takes to prepare a brick of curry to tenderize the meat? Use tender cuts? Blade tenderize?

inb4 make from scratch
Japanese curry from scratch is only marginally better than brick curry yet takes 5x as long to make making it one of the things not actually worth making from scratch.

Dont add sugar to your stews. The onions and carrots will add enough sweetness.

Well what cut is it? My meat usually doesn't start getting tender until hour 2 or even 3 depending on heat level. Do you have a thermometer?

You can always take the carrots out and like other user said they shouldn't be added in the beginning. Have you ever made stew?

>brown beef chunks, remove from pot
>deglaze with a bit of stock and add chopped onions, sweat
>add spices, herbs, etc and more stock
You can add your thickener here if you want but I typically wait until the end to make the gravy.
>add beef back to pot and keep it at a simmer
>after an hour or so add potatoes, wait another hour to add carrots

I pour most of the liquid out at this point, make a roux, and then add the liquid to that to make my gravy.

I think I have most of the technique down,I saw a bunch of videos but I was mostly going by the one from Food Wishes. It covers all that you mentioned.

I'm not sure what cut it was but it was pretty darn red, very little connective tissue and fat.

The dumplings are done separately in salted water with some oil or butter added in. You pour the stew over them.

Ah, so I fucked up with the carrots coming in too early. i did add celery and the herbs only after I've browned all the meat and deglazed the pan with roughly chopped onions, garlic, and some guiness beer.

>
>keep cooking you cuck. the meat fibrils are technically overcooked but since they are lubricated with collagen after long cooking they will appear tender. you haven't gotten to the collagen rendering stage yet, ergo your meat is sawdust
I approve this message!

>complains without giving advice

>Stew Noob

That is now my official porn name.

If it's the wrong cut cooking it longer wont help, most of the people itt are plebs. We need to know what cut of meat it is. If it's like rump or some shit it's basically not gonna improve

Yeah, so it's been 2 more hours since my OP, and it did got a bit tender.

It's not falling apart and juicy, it's more like crumbling mildly moist, but the stew as a whole is okay. I'll leave it at that for today, I don't think it's gonna get much better.

It's adequate. But the lessons are such:
* Make sure to get the right meat
* Use a hotter pan to sear
* Throw in the mushier veggies closer to the end
* Use less salt since the stock I used to add liquid was already salty enough

All in all, 4/10, needs improvement.

2 hours isn't long enough to stew. if you bought standard grocery store 'beef chunks' then 100% that is a stewing cut. go watch chef john beef stew and a jacque pepin beef bourg recipe video for the standard approach to layering flavors. note that besides moderately salting the initial mirepoix when you sautee it + the beef when you brown it, you should AVOID salting your stew until the very end. all the salt you add each time you check your stew isn't going to magically disappear - it will accumulate and intensify the saltiness and the liquid volume decreases. which is why you shouldn't salt the liquid until the end.

What magical muscle fibers don't break down with long stewing time pray tell

I didn't salt the stew, I salted the beef before searing, and I salted the onions a bit when deglazing the pan. It was a bit too much.

I stewed for 3.5 h in total. I want to keep going but It's pretty late already, and I'm not going to leave it on while I sleep. Maaaaybe if I used the lowest hob and lowest setting....

>2 hours to stew
>"All in all, 4/10, needs improvement."

Well there's your problem ya dingus: stews need to sit for at least a few hours (i.e. 3 to 4)

More like 3.5 in total, I started a bit oven an hour before I posted OP.

It's still going, but I want to go to sleep, and if I leave it on I know I will fuck it up.

2 hours is more than enough cooking time to break down enough collagen in a suitable cut.

elastin.

regardless, it's not just about 'breaking down the muscle fibers'. you can stew meat enough to essentially obliterate its structure, that doesn't mean it's going to have a good texture though. good stew meat has enough collagen and fat in it so that relatively large bundles of fibers are separated and lubricated as they break down. this gives the result of a very soft texture in the mouth that requires minimal work to tear apart. an unsuitable cut will just dry out and separate into small, tough fibers which will yield a mealy texture.

stew is more complicated than you anons think. not every cut makes for a good stew.

No, don't listen to that guy.

Almost any savory dish is made worse with the addition of sugar.

>stew is more complicated than you anons think. not every cut makes for a good stew.

with the shit cuts you slice the chunks SMALLER and let it basically melt into the stew. you want this. of course if you want big chunks of steak style stew you need to invest in a better cut (chuck at least).

>adding the veggies at the start

Bruh

just cook it for as long as you think you need to and only put the blocks in at the end

Idiots who know nothing about cooking fundamentals, please return to your McChicken threads

Correct, a small amount of sugar on the meat gives a deeper flavor, you don't do it to make it "taste sweet" any more than you salt the meat before browning to make it "taste salty". It's not really necessary but some people do it anyway

As far as concerns of a "sweet" outcome are concerned, the natural variations in sugar content in onions or carrots more than obliterates any tiny amount of sugar you might use to aid browning. Let alone any variable amounts of residual sugar in the wine, oh god I just realized mentioning "wine" is also going to bring out loud, stupid opinions. Drink bleach you idiots.

Lol I love how those people pin it down to being an "american" thing when putting sugar in savory dishes is about as asian as you can get