Classic Beef Stew.

Beef stew is simple tasty and a good winter dish. Just serve it with some mashed potatoes and you have the perfect warming winner meal.

For this you will need
675g/1½ ld stewing beef
Dripping or oil
Plain flour for dusting meat
2 large onions
3 medium carrots
1 medium turnip
570ml/1pt beef stock
2 tbsp tomato purée
2 garlic cloves
Fresh thyme
Salt and pepper to taste

Now for your meat you want a good cut of beef that does not have to much gristle in it. You do not want the best steak that you can get but you do not want the kind of beef that you can only mince.

Take your beef and place in a colander so that any liquid can drain away. Once the beef is nice and dry place it in a bag and add some plain flour so that the beef is nicely cover with a covering of the flour.

Put some dripping or oil to the pan so that it is nice and hot . Then start to fry the beef in the frying pan. You want it to go nice and brown . The browner it is the better the gravy in the stew. Once your meat is browned add it to a large sauce pan or casserole dish.

Now place your frying an back on the heat and add your onions and a little more dripping or oil. Now start to fry the opinions sot they start to go brown. If they look like they are starting to burn just add a little water to the frying pan and deglaze the pan. Once the onions have started to cook add the garlic, tomato purée and the thyme.
Once the onions have cooked add them to the beef. Now take the rest of the stock or water and add it to the frying pan. What you want to do is make sure that any crystallised juices that are stuck to the side of the pan get in to the stock and improve the flavour of the gravy. Once very thing is deglazed then add the stock to the beef and onions.

Now at this point if you like you can add all the vegetables if you like. Or you might prefer to add then toward the end of the cooking so that they still have some bite in them.

Then you need to place the pot with every thing in, on to the heat and bring to the boil. Once it has boiled you then reduce the heat and cook for any thing from one hour to two and a half hours. How long you cook it for depends on how long the meat takes to cook. If the meat is almost tender then add the vegetables, for the last thirty to forty minutes.

Just keep a eye on it as it cooks. If it looks like it is going a little dry add some more stock or water . And that is that a winter warming stew that can not be beat.