Beef Stew
Chuck beef browned in batches, then slow-braised with potatoes, carrots and herbs until the collagen melts into a thick, glossy sauce. The kind of one-pot recipe that gets better overnight — and works with any root vegetables you have on hand.
Ingredients
- 700 gbeef chuck
- 500 gpotato
- 3 carrots
- 1 onion
- 3 garlic cloves
- 2 tbsptomato paste
- 500 mlbeef broth
- 2 tbspflour
- 3 thyme sprigs
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 tspsalt
- ½ tspblack pepper
Method
- Cut the beef into 4 cm chunks, removing any large sinew. Pat completely dry with paper towels — wet meat steams instead of browning. Season generously with salt and pepper, then toss with flour to coat.
- Heat oil in a heavy Dutch oven over medium-high heat until shimmering. Brown the beef in 2–3 batches, leaving space between pieces. Cook undisturbed for 3 minutes per side until a deep brown crust forms. Don't rush this — it's where the flavor of the whole stew comes from. Set meat aside.
- Reduce heat to medium. Add diced onion to the same pot and cook 5 minutes, scraping up the browned bits. Add garlic and tomato paste, cook 2 minutes until the paste darkens. Pour in the broth and stir, scraping the bottom clean.
- Return the beef to the pot. Add thyme and bay leaves. Bring to a gentle simmer — small bubbles, not a rolling boil. Cover and cook on the lowest heat for 60 minutes.
- Add carrots cut into large chunks and waxy potatoes quartered. Cover and cook another 30–35 minutes until the vegetables are tender and the beef pulls apart easily with a fork.
- Remove bay leaves and thyme. Taste and adjust salt. If the sauce is too thin, simmer uncovered for 10 minutes. Serve in deep bowls with crusty bread or over mashed potatoes.
FAQ
Chuck roast needs low, steady heat — not a rolling boil. If the liquid bubbles hard the whole time, the muscle fibres contract and squeeze out moisture, leaving the meat dry and chewy even after hours of cooking. The right temperature is a bare simmer: a few lazy bubbles breaking the surface every few seconds. The second issue is time. Chuck has a lot of collagen that takes 90 minutes to fully convert to gelatin — pull it at 60 minutes and it's still tough. If the meat is still firm at 90 minutes, give it another 30: there's a specific moment when it goes from resistant to yielding, and it happens quickly.
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Comments (2)
Cooked this for 3 hours on low and it was falling apart tender. I used half wine half stock and added some pearl onions at the end. The leftovers the next day were even better, let it sit in the fridge overnight.
Rest the beef for at least 5 minutes after cooking beef stew. Cutting immediately lets all those precious juices run onto the board. A loose foil tent keeps it warm without steaming the crust.