Guiness beef stew | Culinary Disasters

Guinness Beef Stew

Posted on December 30th, 2007 by Jeff

This dish was amazing of course is it possible for a dish that contains beer, beef, and bacon (the 3 Bs of life) to be horrible? I think not.

I have started re-reading the French Laundry cookbook and have concluded for being a madman; Thomas Keller has some brilliant and great ideas. Some of them are impractical for the home cook especially one who is quickly distracted by shiny objects (straining sauces 20 times comes to mind). One thing though I have been trying to take to heart is the whole idea that vegetables used in long cook dishes should not be consumed since they are the texture of baby food and have no taste. Since it was impractical to strain out all of the vegetables, pick the pieces of meat out, and add new vegetables I opted instead to add them later in the cook. Give the meat more time to soak up that Guinness goodness (yes I know Keller probably would have browned the beef, wrapped it in cheese cloth so easy removal of beef, and then strained the sauce more times than I have fingers and toes).

Anyways good dish with a good amount of prep so find some good music and get into a good rhythm.

For this dish you are going to need:

1.5 lbs of beef chuck roast (if you buy it with the bone make sure you get over 2lbs because bones are not light) cut into 1 inch cubes
4 strips of bacon cut into couple inch sections (feel free to add more because I always end up munching on it after it is cooked and before it is back into the pan)
1 onion medium dice
2 carrots medium dice
2 stalks of celery medium dice
6 potatoes cut into medium dice (I used yukon gold)
3 cloves of garlic finely diced
leaves from 2 sprigs of thyme
2 bay leaves
1 bottle/can of Guinness draught (shake it if you hear the widget bouncing around you have the right one).
4 cups of beef broth
TB of unsalted butter
Kosher salt and black pepper

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees.

Over medium heat in a cast iron dutch oven add in the bacon and cook till crispy. Strain out the bacon leaving that beautiful bacon grease behind. Set the bacon aside on some paper towels to rest.

Working in small batches (remember to much meat in the pan will cause the meat to steam not brown) add in the cube steak with a pinch of salt and pepper. Cook till brown all over (about 8-10 minutes) and remove and set aside.

Once you are done add all the beef and bacon back to the pan and pour the guinness over top of it. Bring to a boil and reduce by 1/2. Make sure you scrape the bottom of the pan to get all the stuck bits freed up.

Once reduced add in the beef stock, thyme, and bay leaves. Bring to a boil, cover, and place in the oven.

After an hour and a half of cooking take a large skillet and over medium heat melt the TB of butter. Add in the celery, onion, and carrot to the pan with a pinch of salt and pepper and cook till softened (about 10 minutes). After the mixture is softened add in the garlic and cook for another minute.

Remove the dutch oven from the oven and add in the onion, garlic, carrot, and celery mixture along with the potatoes. Stir to combine and place back in the oven uncovered for another hour (mostly because I was trying to get some pictures taken and forgot to add the lid after putting it in the oven stupid shiny object syndrome).