A classic Belgian dish, this stew features beef and onions in a beer-laced broth. We used Newcastle Brown Ale; for more authentic flavor, try dark Trappist beers from Chimay or Orval.
The flavor is wonderful, but after an hour of cooking the meat was still pretty chewy. I'm not sure how it would work in terms of the amount of cooking liquid, but I think this definitely needs a couple of hours of simmering for the meat to become fork tender. Interestingly enough, myrecipes has two more versions of this same stew and both call for two hour cook time. As always, when simmering, make sure it is a SIMMER and not a boil, otherwise your meat will be very chewy. Also, as others have noted, the browning is a pain in the butt with the amount of fat rendered from the bacon and the amount of meat. I halved the recipe and even with less meat, and less cooking time, I had a hard time getting my second batch to brown nicely while the frond began to scorch. Browning is key to this recipe because you need the frond to help provide the deep beefy flavor that makes this so taste so good...and, complaints aside, it really does taste good. Now, if only the meat was more tender.
Really good, nice change from the ho-hum beef stew. Made it to the recipe but added sauteed mushrooms and baby carrots. Served it on spaetzel with a green salad. Husband agreed, it was delicious.
This was absolutely wonderful! Made as written except added 3 carrots, cut up (last minute decision--didn't really need it but I like carrots in stew) and was out of bacon so used bacon fat I'd had frozen to brown the beef and cook the onions and garlic. Also cooked the beef in batches so it wouldn't steam instead of brown. Great dish for a cool/cold night.
Very good, best made the day prior. Because we had the time, cooked bacon & removed from pan, then browned the meat in small batches, removing from pan as done. Used all beef stock instead of broth & water. Otherwise followed recipe. Served over wide egg noodles and with some fresh-baked thyme bread (from artisan bread in 5 min a day). Looking back, we'd probably not coat the beef, would hold the flour aside to add to the onions/garlic. Even so, hearty & satisfying.
yea, great but!!!! why dont you give an option to convert to decimal rather than keeping it in the old-fashioned imperial? i know its quaint but its also frustrating. Tjak
Great tasting, pretty easy to prepare, and well worth the effort! Suggestion: see if your butcher can pre-slice the meat for you when you buy it. The most time-consuming part about this recipe is the slicing/dicing of the beef. :) Also, wider egg noodles seem to go best with this recipe. HIGHLY RECOMMEND!!
It is so important to brown the meat in batches, otherwise it will just kind of steam and never brown. Also, like many other reviewers, I had to add more oil after browning and removing the meat to sautee the onions and garlic. Other than that, this has really nice flavors--I didn't have any dark beer, so I just used a regular lager, and it worked out fine (though next time I'll get some dark beer.
My husband is not a great stew fan but he loves this one! Used Chimay that is suggested in article (found at Bev Mo.) Expensive for a beer or ale, $5.00 for one 12 oz. bottle, but well worth it. UPDATE: Substituted chopped onions with pearl or boiling onions. We like onions in the stew but the chopped onions were getting lost in the sauce.
My boyfriend and I thought this was delicious. We used Ommegang Abby Ale for the beer. Next time I will cook both the bacon and the beef in two batches - I think the beef won't have enough space to brown properly if done at once (and the bacon would need to be done twice too so that both batches get to fry in the bacon fat). I did not include the extra flour with the beef - which I think worked out well. The stew is thick enough with just the flour on the beef.
