Lemony Beer and Rosemary Beef Stew

Wintertime is stew time.  A good stew warms you in places a roaring fire, or even a snifter of Armagnac can’t reach. Although, Armagnac is a step in the right direction.

I am an unapologetic carnivore and while I do love seafood, chicken and pork, when it comes to stew, my taste buds beg for beef.

Beef stew is boring you say?  Ok, let’s clear away the childhood visions of bland brown gravy and meat and throw in some flavors your stunted imagination may not think of when you think of stew.  Beer.  Rosemary. Lemon. Roaring fire. Red wine. Flaming libido.

Been married a while?  Sorry, guess I shouldn’t have mentioned flaming libido.  Didn’t mean to make you cry.  Have another brandy. There are better things in life than ….no, hell no, there are no better things in life!  But this stew comes close. You’re stuck, I can tell. Better leave the bottle.  Aside from this delightful recipe, brandy is the only consolation I can offer.

But back to stew.  By the way, why do we call it beef when the meat comes from cattle?  Why do we call it pork when the meat comes from pigs?  Blame it on the Normans who conquered Britain in 1066 and brought the French language to the English court.  French words like boeuf and porc took over.  French was the language of English royalty and the upper classes and English was the language of the peasantry until about 1450.  Even today the motto of the English Monarch is in French, “Dieu et Mon Droit.” God and My Right.

Did I say, ‘back to stew?”  Well, this time I really mean it!

Lemony Beer and Rosemary Beef Stew

3 lbs Natural Chuck roast, cut into 11/2 inch cubes

2 Cups beef stock (I use Bovril and water to make the stock)

4 Carrots, peeled and cut on the bias

12 Button mushrooms quartered (I use the brown ones)

1 Can tomato paste

1 16oz bottle of beer (I use English ale, and have also used Irish stout, but any beer will do)

1 Large onion, diced

9 Cloves garlic, smashed, hard ends removed

2 Large sprigs rosemary

Juice of one fresh lemon (I also added the lemon rind.  Use a regular cheese grater...saves time)

Salt and pepper as desired.

Olive oil for braising beef and vegetables

Heat oven to 275ºF

Let’s do it!

Add a few squirts of olive oil to a large frying pan and braise the beef in three batches, adding salt and pepper to each batch, as desired. As each batch is braised, toss it into a large bowl.

Use a cup of beef broth to deglaze the pan and pour it over the beef. Let the beef rest while you braise the vegetables, except for the mushrooms.  Use a stew pot to braise the vegetables. About a 3 minute braise.

Put the stew pot on the stove, add the beef, the second cup of beef broth, the mushrooms, the beer, tomato paste, and lemon juice. Stir and bring to a boil.  Toss in the sprigs of rosemary. Don’t bother to pull off the leaves, they’ll come off in the cooking.

Cover the stew pot and slide it into the preheated oven.

I let my stew cook for about 4 hours, but you may not have to wait that long.  When the meat is ‘fall apart tender,’ the dish is ready to please your friends, confound your enemies and rebrand the cold winter as a time of pleasure.

It’s at this point I made mashed potatoes and opened a bottle of dark red Rioja wine.  I let it breathe for 30 seconds before I was overcome by an unrelenting thirst.

Not still thinking about the libido?  Well, I’ve done my job.

Make Some Rosemary Vinegar!

Snowy rosemary

Worth waiting for!

Herbs are my gardening delight.  They put a smile on my face, like a cold beer in the hot summer, or a hot date in the cold winter.  I especially like Rosmarinus officinalis (rosemary) and grow a lot of it.   I like the aroma when I run my fingers through it.  Whoops, my mind drifted.  Stuck on the stuff about the cold winter.  Anyway, I just flat like the way a rosemary bush looks in my garden. Even snow covered, rosemary is beautifully verdant and redolent.  On those gray days of winter it perks the senses and carries the hope of spring. 

Hey, one more big, big reason I love rosemary.  For a thumb so brown it makes deadwood look lively, rosemary is a snap to grow, and propagate.   Containers.  Garden. Backyard.  Front yard.  As long as it’s got some sun and a smattering of water once in a while, it’s a happy, healthy plant.  The worst thing you can do to a rosemary plant is be too kind, and by that I mean over-watering.  If you’re container growing, let the soil get dry before you douse it.  And, for goodness sakes, don’t let your plant sit in water.

Just for convenience and because rosemary can take awhile to fill out and up, I plant mine from small, nursery grown plants.

I use rosemary for cooking.  A lot.  Maybe you do, too, but one flavor you may not have tried is rosemary-spiced vinegar.  Easy to make.

Take a gallon jug of apple cider vinegar (16 cups, 3.785 liters) and pour off 2 cups, or a little less than half a liter, saving it for another use.  Put two cups of pure water back in the gallon jug.  You’ve just reduced the acid content from 5% to around 4.3%.  I like my vinegar a bit tamer than 5% for salads.  Add a third cup of sugar (43 g) and stir until all the sugar dissolves.

Thoroughly wash and dry seven or eight healthy sprigs of fresh rosemary, the fresher the better.  When rosemary is cut and sits in the produce aisle, it loses some of its delightfully aromatic oil.  That and the price you pay for a few sprigs in a grocery store are two more reasons I like to grow my own.

Place the washed and dried sprigs of rosemary in the gallon jug of vinegar, water, and sugar solution.  Cap the jug and let it rest in a shady place for a couple of weeks.  Voilá!  You have just made more rosemary vinegar than you could use in a three star restaurant in a year.  I like to bottle it and give it as gifts.

Want a suggestion on how to use your newly made vinegar?  Read a previous post on making vinaigrette, but this time, substitute your homemade gourmet rosemary vinegar.  Yeah, yeah, you’ve just created a masterpiece.  Now wipe that smile off your face!