MEAT STEWS
MEAT STEWS, MADE WITH BEEF, LAMB, or pork, should be rich and satisfying. Our goal in developing a master recipe for meat stew was to keep the cooking process simple without compromising the stew's deep, complex flavor.
At the outset, we made several decisions. We tried several recipes with homemade meat stock. They were delicious but require much more effort than stews made with canned broth or other liquids. At the other extreme, we rejected recipes that call for dumping meat, vegetables, and liquid into a pot to simmer for a couple of hours. Browning the meat and some of the vegetables, especially onions, adds flavor, and this step is too important to skip.
We focused on the following issues: What cut or cuts of meat respond best to stewing? Is it the same cut from different animals? How much and what kind of liquid should you use? When and with what do you thicken the stew? And where should the stew be cooked, in the oven or on top of the stove, or does it matter?
We decided to start our tests with beef and then see if our findings held true for lamb and pork. We sampled 12 different cuts of beef (see figure 2). We browned each, marked them for identification, and stewed them in the same pot. Chuck proved to be the most flavorful, tender, and juicy. Most other cuts were either too stringy, too chewy, too dry, or just plain bland. The exception was rib eye steak, which made good stew meat but is too expensive a cut to use for this purpose.
Our advice is to buy a steak or roast from the chuck and cube it yourself instead of buying precut stewing beef. The reason is simple: Prepackaged stewing beef is often made up of irregularly shaped end pieces from different muscles that cannot be sold retail as steaks or roasts because of their uneven appearance. Because of the differences in origin, precut stewing cubes in the same package may have inconsistent cooking, flavor, and tenderness qualities. If you cut your own cubes from a piece of chuck, you are assured that all the cubes will cook in the same way and have the flavor and richness of chuck.
The names given to different cuts of chuck vary, but the most commonly used names for retail chuck cuts include boneless chuck-eye roasts, cross-rib roasts, blade steaks and roasts, shoulder steaks and roasts, and arm steaks and roasts. We particularly liked chuck-eye roast in our testing, but all chuck cuts were delicious when cubed and stewed.
So why does chuck make the best stew? The intramuscular fat and connective tissue in chuck is well suited to long, slow, moist cooking. When cooked in liquid, the connective tissue melts down into gelatin, making the meat juicy and tender. The fat helps, too, in two important ways. Fat carries the chemical compounds that our taste buds receive as beef flavor, and it also melts when cooked, lubricating the meat fibers as it slips between the cells, increasing tenderness.
With our cut of beef settled, we started to explore how and when to thicken the stew. We tried several thickening methods and found most acceptable, with the exception of quick-cooking tapioca, which produced a slimy and gelatinous stew. Dredging meat cubes in flour is another roundabout way of thickening stew. The floured beef is browned, then stewed. During the stewing process, some of the flour from the beef dissolves into the liquid, causing it to thicken. Although the stew we cooked this way thickened up nicely, the beef cubes had a "smothered steak" look: The flour coating had browned, not the meat. This coating often fell off during cooking to expose pale and therefore less flavorful meat.
We also tried two thickening methods at the end of cooking—a beurre manié (softened butter mixed with flour) and cornstarch mixed with water. Either method is acceptable, but the beurre manié lightened the stew's color, making it look more like pale gravy than rich stew juices. Also, the extra fat did not improve the stew's flavor enough to justify it. For those who prefer thickening at the end of cooking, we found cornstarch dissolved in water did the job without compromising the stew's dark, rich color.
Pureeing the cooking vegetables is another thickening method. Once the stew is fully cooked, the meat is pulled from the pot and the juices and vegetables are pureed to create a thick sauce. We felt this thickening method made the vegetable flavor too prominent.
Ultimately, we opted for thickening the stew with flour at the beginning—stirring it into the sautéing onions and garlic, right before adding the liquid. Stew thickened this way did not taste any better, but it was easier to make. There's no last-minute work; once the liquid starts to simmer, the cook is free to do something else.
We next focused on stewing liquids. We tried water, wine, low-sodium canned beef broth, low-sodium chicken broth, as well as combinations of these liquids. Stews made with water were bland and greasy. Stews made with all wine were too strong. All stock was good, but we missed the acidity and flavor provided by the wine. In the end, we preferred a combination of chicken stock and red wine. (In general, we think canned chicken stock tastes better than canned beef stock; see Broth for more information.)
We tested various amounts of liquid and found that we preferred stews with a minimum of liquid, as this preserves a strong meat flavor. With too little liquid, however, the stew may not cook evenly and there may not be enough stew "sauce" to spoon over starchy accompaniments. A cup of liquid per pound of meat gave us sufficient sauce to moisten a mound of mashed potatoes or polenta without drowning them.
We tested various kinds of wine and found that fairly inexpensive fruity, full-bodied young wines, such as Chianti, zinfandel, or cabernets were best. (See Wine for more information on wine.)
In order to determine when to add the vegetables, we made three different stews, adding carrots, potatoes, and onions to one stew at the beginning of cooking and to another stew halfway through the cooking process. For our final stew, we cooked the onions with the meat but added steamed carrots and potatoes when the stew was fully cooked.
The stew with vegetables added at the beginning was thin and watery. The vegetables had fallen apart and given up their flavor and liquid to the stew. The beef stew with the cooked vegetables added at the last minute was delicious and the vegetables were the freshest and most intensely flavored. However, it is more work to steam the vegetables separately. Also, vegetables cooked separately from the stew don't really meld all that well with the other flavors and ingredients. We prefer to add the vegetables partway through the cooking process. They don't fall apart this way and they still have enough time to meld with the other stew ingredients. There is one exception to this rule. Peas should be added just before serving the stew to preserve their fresh color and texture.
Our recipe was now complete and we only had to fiddle with the cooking times and temperatures. We focused on low-temperature cooking methods, since we already knew that high heat toughens and dries out meat. We cooked stews on the stovetop over low heat (with and without a flame-taming device) and in a 250-degree oven. (You want to maintain a simmer in the pot, with temperatures staying below the boiling point, 212 degrees, so that the meat does not become tough and dry.)
The flame-tamer device worked too well and the stew juices tasted raw and boozy. Putting the pot right on the burner worked better, but we had the most consistent results in the oven. We found ourselves constantly adjusting the burner to maintain a gentle simmer and this method is prone to error. Cooking in a 250-degree oven ensures a constant level of heat.
Regardless of whether you cook the stew on the stovetop or in the oven, the meat passes from the tough to tender stage fairly quickly. Often at the 21/2-hour mark the meat would still be chewy. Fifteen minutes later it would be tender. Let the stew go another 15 minutes and the meat starts to dry out.
With a recipe using beef chuck developed, we wondered if the same technique and ingredients would work with other meats. We tested various cuts of pork and lamb and found that shoulder cuts respond best to stewing. Like chuck, these cuts have enough fat to keep the meat tender and juicy during the long cooking process.
Pork shoulder is often called Boston butt or Boston shoulder in markets. We generally bought a boneless Boston butt or pork shoulder roast (see figure 3) and cut it into cubes ourselves. A lamb shoulder roast can be hard to find. We often bought inexpensive bone-in lamb shoulder chops (see figure 4) and cut the meat off the bone and into chunks.
For the most part, the beef recipe worked fine with these cuts of pork and lamb. However, lamb tends to cook a bit more quickly. Beef and pork require a total cooking time of 21/2 to 3 hours. Lamb needs just 2 to 21/2 hours to soften up. All times will vary depending on the addition of slow-cooking vegetables, such as potatoes and carrots, as the meat cooks.