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My mum used to make the perfect casserole with baked dumplings when I was growing up. My efforts however, have always been a huge disappointment with a thin watery sauce dotted with bits of dried herbs.
The ideal is a beef or lamb casserole in a thick tasty sauce which is neither watery, gravy flavoured or based on tomatoes.
My dumpling game is strong.
Help.
Good quality meat (fatty cut is best), fried off, onion and garlic fried, stir in a tablespoon full off flour, fresh herbs, carrots or whatever veg you want in there, just covered with water, add in a Knorr beef stock pot, season and slow and low until tender and reduced. Keep an eye on the level of liquid incase you need to top up a little. Or use wine or beer instead of water.
Little bit flour/starch when sauteeing your onions
Get all the ingredients you like in your stew, brown the meat in a frying pan, then chuck everything into a slow cooker, with some stock.
Leave cooking for about 8 hours, thicken with cornflour to desired consistency, add dumplings and transfer whole pot to the oven (edit to add, this bit is to cook the dumplings, so leave it in for long enough!), enjoy.
For us we first coat the lumps of meat by tossing them in a dish of flour mixed with herbs and pepper. Then those are fried a few at a time in the same pot we will make the casserole in. You need to do only a few at a time or they steam rather than fry. Then the onions which are another thickening agent and finally pour in the stock/wine which will lift the tasty burned bits off the bottom. Put the meat and other veges in and then turn the heat way down and cook for a long time on the oven. I would probably have the heat down at 140ish. If it is up at 180 it might end up a bit tough
Cut your meat, get a bowl with some plain flour and add a decent amount of salt and pepper to it, dip the meat into the flour until lightly covered. Dump the meat into a hot pan and brown for 10-15mins until sealed. Remove the meat and set aside. Add some bacon lardons to the pan and cook on a high heat until golden. Add two sliced carrots, two sliced parsnips, 1 sliced large onion, some bay, thyme rosemary and garlic and turn down to a medium heat and simmer until the veg starts to soften. Add half a bottle of red wine and simmer until it’s reduced by half. Add tablespoon of tomato purée and simmer for two minutes. Add the meat back in an add around 1litre of thick stock. 1 oxo per 150ml so 6 or 7. Add the meat back in and bring to a simmer. Now bang it in the over for 2.5 hours at 150deg. Stir every 30mins.
always been a huge disappointment with a thin watery sauce
If you want thick sauce, you need to use a thickener. Either cornflour or normal flour cooked into the stew.
Great advice , thanks. The onions going in early, are they big chunks, small or tiny ?
Also carrots, parsnips and what other veggies are suitable ? Would butternut squash work ?
Some grated carrot in the dumplings is a good one to try.
If you do add corn flour, add a tea spoon in a cup then a dash of the stock. Make sure all mixed in then add to the stew.
Leave the meat in a bowl covered with a cloth at room temperature overnight, so that some of the moisture it contains evaporates before browning.
The classic base for the stock should be onions, carrots and celery.
I like to use whole baby carrots and baby potatoes with skin on in my stews, gives them a more "farmhouse" wholesome feel.
As mentioned really brown your meat and use a flour.
Recently used this recipe, so very easy to follow and very tasty.
https://www.jamesmartinchef.co.uk/recipes/beef-stew-and-dumplings-2/
Would recomnend adding leeks, good quality 100% chocolate finely grated, chilli, ginger and red peppers.
I par boil carrots and parsnips before adding.
Long slow cooking.
EDIT - I prefer pearl barley as a thickener; a tin of good quality plum tomatoes and a very generous squirt of tomato puree will add depth of flavour.
I don't use flour myself, I put a generous knob of butter in 2/3rds of the way through cooking.
And if it's still too thin, I sprinkle a bit of instant potato in.
The latter is usually only necessary when there haven't been enough spuds in it to start with though.
And if it’s still too thin, I sprinkle a bit of instant potato in.
what other veggies are suitable ?
Anything really, especially root veg, and squashes.
I like to chuck in a handful of pearl barley and/or other grains to thicken and add heft.
I also use the pressure cooker and save myself several hours of oven time!
One other tip - if you're really struggling for thickness, flour can be good, but also maybe just ladle off some/most of the liquid into a different pan, put it on the highest heat and boil it right down, all the way until it's basically a thick paste. Then stir back in.
I always put a generous helping of lentils in - after they have been slow cooking for ages they break up and make it lovely and thick - and also give the stew a lovely taste.
The problem is often too much water in the pot to start with. Better to put just enough in to cover the meat and veg and top up with a splash as required, as it reduces during cooking. I tend to use more wine than water. :0)
Rather than use flour/cornflour etc to thicken at the end I remove all the meat and veg with a slotted spoon, then turn up the heat and reduce the sauce as necessary, then return the meat and veg to serve.
If it does need a thickener, I might add spoon of Bisto (of which ever meat is cooking), for a bit more depth of flavour.
+1 for pearl barley or lentils to thicken
I think the Smash tip came from Keith Floyd, by the way.
Always add chilli, flakes or sliced here. Red wine or Guinness depending on what I want to drink also gets added.
Chuck in a load of frozen peas just before the end.
As mentioned really brown your meat and use a flour.
This. Don't be shy, if you think it's browned enough do it some more.
The other mistake home cooks make is just frying ingredients. You've got to fry them off, like the cooks on TV do.
Stew tips:
Try shin, cheek, tail
Stock cube no. Good fresh stock preferably home made.
Not thick enough? Remove everything with a slotted spoon and reduce the liquor as mentioned.
Get fancy? Pass the liquor through a fine sieve/muslin before reducing.
And if it’s still too thin, I sprinkle a bit of instant potato in.
Or just buy potato starch, it works far better than cornflour as it on reheat it stays thick.
Chucking in a bit of black pudding really makes the sauce rich. Mmmm.
Potatoes. Bigger dice that the other veg, maybe 2cm. Once they're cooked they'll start to break down, thickening the stew. Don't overcook them unless you want pie filling.
(Pro tip: re-cooked leftover stew makes fantastic pie filling.)
If you hang on a minute, I'll go retrieve my recipe.
Don't go overboard with the carrots, or everything just tastes of carrots.
@charlie.hobbs to the thread please.
Charlie's recipes are ace!!
Don't use purple carrots. I chucked them in a stew once and I've never lived down the resulting purple stew. It was tasty, but everything was the same colour.
Defo cook off flour either in the onions or with the meat to get a thicker sauce.
Great thing with stews is that after the basics you can do what you like, just tailor your chunk size so it all cooks at the same time.
I always always add a bottle of beer as part of the stock quantity -guiness, old speckled hen or Leffe Brun are all good. And taste half way through cooking - add an oxo if its not beefy enough!
A thin sauce can be remedied with a beurre manier.
Put a lump of butter onto a board and mash some flour into it with a fork until it's all combined into a paste.
Then stir that into the sauce and let it cook and thicken for a few minutes (it's easier if you transfer the solid ingredients into a separate bowl first using a slotted spoon, adding them back in once sauce is ready).
jamesmartin.co.uk?! That's as bad as linking to the Daily Mail. The cyclist hating sports car driving smug cockend.
Sorry, back to stew 😀
If you do use a Knorr stock cube, taste you stew before you add any more salt.
STOO! (disclaimer: I'm vegetarian, I'm sure the carnivores can substitute meaty variants)
1.5L stock (OXO do meat-free beef cubes now which are great)
Bay leaf
1tsp thyme
1tsp rosemary
1tsp onion granules
A pinch of white pepper
2tsp Marmite
1tbsp tomato puree
3tsp gravy granules (optional if you're using meat maybe?)
Root veg, small dice. (I don't have exact quantities here, I do it by eye. Half a suede, a couple of large carrots, couple of parsnips etc. A lot of supermarkets do packs. Or the lazy option is "vegetable soup mix" pre-diced fresh veg.
Potatoes, large dice, about the same amount as the combined root veg.
2x Onions, ish, size-dependant.
Protein of choice. Frozen Quorn 'steak' strips is my go-to, drizzled with Maggi liquid seasoning and / or Hendo's.
Fry off the onions and root veg in a lug of oil until the onions are starting to soften. Add the liquid and other ingredients which make up the stock. Simmer for a while depending how firm / squooshy you like your veg, 20 mins maybe?
Add the spuds (this is when I'd add the Quorn also), bring it back up to simmering and lid it.
If you're adding suet dumplings then give it ten minutes before adding them, lid it again and weight the lid down. You don't want the heat too high here or you'll weld half the stoo to the bottom of the pan. Another 20 minutes, yay, stoo!
Aside, I'd like to know more here:
My dumpling game is strong.
Shin of beef but it takes a looooong time. Add pearl barley and you have Groaty Pudding, a Black Country dish and a fine one.
jamesmartin.co.uk?! That’s as bad as linking to the Daily Mail. The cyclist hating sports car driving smug cockend.
Meh! He’s no DM and I’m not bothered what he once said about cycles, he makes some good recipes.
Shin of beef but it takes a looooong time. Add pearl barley and you have Groaty Pudding, a Black Country dish and a fine one.
A stew should take a longtime.
A stew should take a longtime.
Clue's in the name really.
Second shin of beef. The connective tissue (collagen) is magically transformed into gelatine which helps thicken. Also added beef or veal bones during the cooking.
Or flour/cornflower as suggested.
Bookmarked!
Garlic has no place in a 'Conventional' stew. None.
You want shoulder steak for this, but not fatty. Trim as much fat off it as you can find. Not shin which is mostly ligaments and even boiling for hours hardly does much to break those down, cheek meat possibly, though tendency to be fibrous, tail. Theres little to no meat on a tail, so if you include any it will simply be for flavour. .
Shoulder is best by far.
Big pot of boiling water with some gravy salt in it. When its fully boiling dump the meat(at room temp) in in the one go. Boil till nearly tender. Go too far and once you do the extra cooking with gravy added etc. it ends up falling completely apart and you get mush.
Stew isnt just a matter of boil boil boil, theres a bit of experience needed to get it right.
What I used to do for steak pies, which I suppose holds for stew also is to cook the meat, then remove it when cooked and make the gravy using the water the meat boiled in. This way you can faff about with it, get the consistency right, of an ideal thickness before adding the meat back in.
Tomato [puree really adds to the flavour of any meat gravy.
If you want to add veg, cook that separately, as cooking any veg for the same length of time as the meat will turn it to mush, so cook it by itself and add back in after you've made the gravy.
Some of my best stews have been simply lamb, onions, carrots, parsnips, tomatoes and water.
I just fry the meat and onion lightly. The idea of sealing the meat is a misnomer, it just adds the seared flavour, you certainly don't want to seal it, you want as much of the flavours to mingle. After several hours of low temperature cooking (sometimes a couple one day, let it cool then a few the next day) I take off all the liquid, skim all the fat off it (I have a gravy jug for this, use it loads) then boil the remainder down until it's thick and tasty then add it all back together.
The last one I did I deglazed the pan I fried the meat in. I think It made it too bitter.
Not shin which is mostly ligaments and even boiling for hours hardly does much to break those down
Rubbish. Yes it takes hours, about 3, but not boiling in water (who on Earth would do that?) and it is not mostly ligaments. Shin is THE cut for stew and dumplings.
I do agree however that if you are cooking a stew for several hours the veg needs to go in late on so it still resembles veg at the end.
Agree with @failedengineer too. A proper "English" stew and dumplings should have no need of garlic - sage, thyme and bay for preference. That said stick whatever you want in your stew which tickle your taste buds.
The last one I did I deglazed the pan I fried the meat in. I think It made it too bitter.
You must ALWAYS deglaze otherwise you are throwing away flavour. If it's bitter you've probably done something else wrong - burned the meat rather than sealing it perhaps.