Beef and Guinness Stew

Our schedules have been a little off this week, so this is really the first night since Tuesday that I've fixed something worth posting on the blog. So, tonight was Beef and Guinness Stew, another recipe pulled from Cooking Light. (Not sure what's "light" about Guinness in a stew, but whatever.)

If your first reaction to this recipe is, "Yeah, I don't like Guinness" (or as my father would say, "That shit tastes like motor oil"), don't worry. Obviously, the alcohol is going to simmer/boil out during cooking time, and what remains is a really rich broth. I really, really wouldn't recommend omitting the Guinness.

I didn't really adjust anything in this recipe--I did choose not to add parsnips, because I'm not a fan of parsnips at all. I would recommend using the caraway seeds--it's just a teaspoon, but they add a lot of extra flavor to this. For even cooking of the beef, once you've cut the meat into the recommended cube size, let it sit out at room temperature for about 15 minutes. Otherwise, the meat will cook unevenly when you move to the next step, which is browning it at a high temperature. It's important to do this step in batches as instructed--adding all of the beef at once will drastically reduce the temperature of the oil/butter, resulting in subpar browning (it will actually just end up graying the meat, which is not a great thing to eat). Boil and simmer as instructed--it takes some time, but the end result is extremely tender beef and a rich, relatively thick broth.

I served this with a simple green salad and some crusty bread I picked up at the grocery store (specifically, a potato and rosemary bread).

Oh, and one important lesson learned from cooking this stew tonight: if the cook has a cold and can't taste anything, it works better if you have someone who can actually taste properly taste-test the broth. Otherwise, you may end up with a salty stew. Oops. (I still maintain that it tasted just fine to me, which probably isn't a good indicator since the leftover Guinness tasted like Bud Light to me.)