Beef Burgundy Stew

It's mid-February and the freezer is looking a little low on soups and stews, so what better to make than a nice pot of beef burgundy stew that will fill both our bellies and the freezer.  For this, I return to that trusty Betty Crocker Cookbook Tony showed you last week, gather the items and get to work.  It takes a couple of hours to cook, but it is well worth the wait.

For this recipe you will need:

2 Tbsp. margarine or butter
5 medium onions, sliced
3 lbs. beef stew meat, cut into 1" cubes
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. chopped fresh or 1/2 tsp. dried thyme leaves
1 tsp. chopped fresh or 1/2 tsp. dried  marjoram leaves
1/4 tsp. black pepper
3 c. beef broth
3 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
3 1/2 c. red Burgundy wine

Preparation:

1.  Melt the butter in a 3-quart pot over medium heat.  Cook onions and mushrooms in butter about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until onions are tender. Remove, drain and reserve.

2.  Cook beef and garlic in the pot over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until beef is brown; drain.  Sprinkle with salt, marjoram, thyme and pepper.

3.  Mix broth and flour; pour over beef.  Heat to boiling, stirring constantly.  Boil and stir one minute.

4.  Stir in Burgundy.  Cover and simmer 1 1/2 - 2 hours, stirring in onions and mushrooms 5 minutes before end of simmer time.

Serving recommendation:  crusty French baguette

Our modifications:

- More garlic!  Two cloves of garlic for that much meat and onions is not nearly enough.  I increased it to five cloves, with two of the cloves being very small.

- The beef broth we bought was in a four cup container, so we used it all.

-  We didn't drain anything, leaving all of the juices from the food in the stew to blend with the added sauces and flavors.

-  We didn't add all of the wine at the same time as outlined in step four.  Instead, we added a little to the onions and mushrooms while they were cooking to prevent them from burning.

-  We added an additional 2 tablespoons of butter when we cooked the meat since all of the previous butter was in the bowl with the mushrooms and onions.

-  My spice cabinet is lacking on occasion, and in this instance I found myself without marjoram.  Oregano, however, is a very close relative, so I substituted with it.

-  We added 1/2 tsp. dried rosemary.

-  As usual in our house, we did not add the salt.

-  It was a busy day and we started on this dish late, so we sped up the cook time.  We left the meat at a low boil, hotter than the simmer it called for, for 45 minutes then proceeded with step 4.

-  We served it with a five-grain baguette from Publix we warmed in a preheated oven.  To do this, preheat your oven to 350 a little before you add the mushrooms and onions back to the stew.  Then, when you add the mushrooms and onions, turn the oven off and stick the baguette in the oven to warm.

Sandy's rating:  4.0
Tony's rating:  3.5

Tony's comments:  We took a short-cut, and it may have been better had it simmered together longer.  As far as a stew goes, there's a lot of meat, onions and mushrooms in it, so it's very satisfying and filling.

Sandy's comments:  I typically make smaller orders of this and just throw all of the ingredients in the Crockpot together to let them simmer all day.  The flavors become really rich when cooked together for a long time.  This batch of stew was good, but I would recommend avoiding our shortcut and letting it cook.  You will get a richer flavor that soothes the soul and makes you feel good.  This recipe makes a LOT of stew, and it freezes well.

Cost to make:
3 lbs stew meat - approx. $12.00
onions - approx. $1.50
mushrooms - $4.80
5-pack of garlic - $1.99
cheap Burgundy wine - $6.99
beef broth - $2.59

About $30.00

Note:  Oregano, pepper, thyme, flour and butter are staples in our kitchen; therefore, I didn't have to buy them.