Beef and Guinness Stew

This one is a bit of a pain in the butt to cook, requiring more attention than your average in-oven stew, but it's dead useful if you only have a stovetop to cook on (which we frequently do in AirBnBs and that). The long simmering times offer a good opportunity to improve the meal with dumplings or your preferred form of potato.

Ingredients

• cooking oil
• ~400g stewing steak
• 6 rashers smoked bacon, sliced thinly (use speck instead if you can get it)
• 1 brown onion, sliced thinner still
• various carrots (I use this recipe to use up any carrots haunting my vegetable drawer and it's nice with up to 3 average-sized carrots, at which point you start to have too much carrot) cut into chunks
• 2 celery stalks, sliced into moons
• 250ml beef stock
• 1 can Guinness
• handful of fresh flat-leaf parsley, diced
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 tbsp plain flour

Additions: Dumplings, mashed potato, salad.

Method

1. Put your frying pan on high heat and fry all the bacon.
   ↓ 8–10 minutes or until the bacon's your desired level of crispy (I prefer MEGA CRISP)
2. Turn the heat to medium and add all the onion. Be vigilant stirring everything at this point; the pan's still hot-hot and the onion will stick/burn accordingly.
   ↓ 3 minutes
3. Add all the carrot and all the celery. Fry, making sure to stir everything together well so the veg is well-coated with bacon fat.
   ↓ 2 minutes
4. Add the beef and stir it in. Continue to fry and stir.
   ↓ 3 minutes or until the beef has faintly browned all over.
5. Pour in the majority of the Guinness — leave a good slosh in the bottom of the can to use later. Let the stew simmer in the pan, stirring occasionally to make sure nothing sticks.
   ↓ 5 minutes
6. Reduce the heat to low. Add all the stock, your bay leaf and all the parsley, then cover the dish.
   ↓ 1 hour. I usually use this time to boil a load of potatoes to mash and portion out — some as a side for this meal, the rest to freeze or use tomorrow
7. Stir and re-cover.
   ↓ 30 minutes
8. Put all the flour in a bowl and slowly add the last of the Guinness while stirring. You want to achieve a smooth paste. If it ends up thick and sticky, spoon some of the stew broth into the bowl and mix thoroughly until you have a kind of pale sauce. Stir the flour and Guinness mixture into the stew, turn the heat to high and cook uncovered, stirring throughout.
   ↓ 15 minutes or until the stew has coagulated to the point where it sticks to the spoon
9. Serve with whatever sides you've decided on.

Gallery

Dates cooked

09/07/2023
09/10/2023