Ingredients:
- 4 potatoes
- 2 lbs. carrots
- 1 small onion
- 1 lb. stew beef
- 1 teaspoon oil
- 15 oz. corn
- 15 oz. peas
- 15 oz. string beans
- 20 oz. tomato paste (approx.)
- 4 tablespoons A1 sauce
- 4 tablespoons HP sauce
- 8 tablespoons Lee and Perrins Worchestershire sauce
- 1 teaspoon Frank's Red Hot
- 1/2 bottle Guinness extra stout
- 1 teaspoon parsley
- 1 teaspoon oregano
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 dash red pepper
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2-3 dashes savory
Prep - 45 minutes
Cooking - 3+ hours
Set List:
- Anthrax - Spreading the Disease
- Tool - Aenima (optional)
- Mastodon - Remission (optional)
THIS IS THE BIG ONE. If you've ever been to a Hockey Day in Canada celebration with me in the past decade, then you know - this...is the GOOD shit.
One winter in the mid-90s, my mom decided to actually cook something from scratch. This was a huge deal in our apartment, because she was a horrible cook. She would make 'sloppy joe', and it would just be beef and a can of tomato sauce. So among the many memories I have of that winter of 1995 - epic cold/snow, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, watching too much NewsRadio - rests the taste of that bitter, awful stew she made for us. I'm sure it somewhat resembled the stew my grandmother brought over from Ireland, maybe in appearance, but wow. Not good. Beef, tomato paste, carrots, potatoes, water. MAYBE a little salt. Over the years, I started taking a stab at the stew, adding ingredients and experimenting, and, as I started to learn to cook for myself, common sense. It's better now. That bad man's* gone now.
*Stew can be a bad, bad man. Don't argue with me.
Start by finding a cassette copy of Anthrax's 1985 breakout thrash classic, Spreading the Disease. Blast it. Finely chop an onion to Charlie Benante's sick, sick drumming - welcome to your nightmare, onion! Hopefully by the breakdown (which you are compelled to shout back at) you should be ready to sort out the meat situation. I find that the stew beef I get from the butcher or supermarket tends to be a bit too large, so I suggest you chop it down to one inch cubes or so, slicing off excess fat as you go.
Get out your biggest sauce pot, preferably one with a thick bottom (snicker), throw some oil in, heat on low, and add the onion. When you see little bubbles appear around the onion bits, increase the heat and add the meat. You're looking to brown the meat here without burning the onion, so be sure to keep an eye on it, stirring occasionally, while you tend to the veggies.
(Of course, I was too lazy to heed my own advice, and not only used a frying pan, but also simply left the giant chunks of beef as they were...It's just a matter of preference. I've had stews where the cook decided to simply quarter or even just halve the potato, so the chunk proportions are all up to you.)
While the beef's doing its thing, peel and chop up your potatoes and carrots. Fun!
You should get some bubbling from the onion/meat combo, but once that subsides and you're left with browned beef like above, you'll want to crank the heat up high, and really brown the sides of the beef, like in the bottommost chunk in the picture. Once that's done, throw enough water in your pot to cover the beef/onion mixture, then stir it up well with a wooden spoon, making sure to thoroughly scrape the bottom of the pot so nothing sticks. Add the potatoes and carrots and bring it all to a boil. Add the peas, string beans, and corn as well. If you're using canned goods, make sure to drain them first. Add the parsley, oregano, savory, salt, and peppers. It should look something like this:
At this point you'll probably have hit track five, The Enemy. This is not a good song. Every great album has that one song that almost ruins the party, and this one is it. If your hands aren't too dirty, definitely skip it. Anthrax has since done much better songs about the evils of Nazi Germany, and the first track on Side 2, Aftershock, wails. IT. WAILS.
Once the stew is boiling, turn the heat down low, and add your liquid ingredients - A1, HP (maybe the best sauce ever), Guinness (drink half of it first), Frank's Red Hot, and the Lee and Perrins. That last one is crucial - the flavor of the stew is really enhanced by the Worchestershire sauce. I find that if the stew's ever a little off, some tweaking with the Lee and Perrins will fix things. Also, make sure to stir every few minutes from here on out to keep anything from sticking to the bottom and burning.
Next, add the tomato paste. The rest of this adventure hinges on how thick you want your stew. The thicker the stew, the more tomato paste you add. If the whole thing gets too watery for you, then don't panic, because it will just cook down into a thicker mix eventually, especially since you want this to cook for hours. If it's too watery, simply let it cook without a lid and you'll be okay.
If the stew is at your preferred consistency, cover, reduce heat, and let it simmer. Ideally, you want to leave it like this for at least three hours, but you can have at it once the vegetables are tender if you're in a hurry for some odd reason. Maybe that's Anthrax's fault! They did get you worked up, I know. Now would be a good time to switch to something heavy but slower, like Tool, or Mastodon if it's snowing.
When you're ready to serve, slice up some Italian bread, dole the stew out to bowls, and enjoy. Sometimes I'll put some in a thermos so I can spray some in my face while bike riding, it really gets the blood pumping. You could also just carve out the end of the bread and pour the stew in there like a badass medieval warrior, but then you better have a lot of Blind Guardian on your iPod.
One winter in the mid-90s, my mom decided to actually cook something from scratch. This was a huge deal in our apartment, because she was a horrible cook. She would make 'sloppy joe', and it would just be beef and a can of tomato sauce. So among the many memories I have of that winter of 1995 - epic cold/snow, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, watching too much NewsRadio - rests the taste of that bitter, awful stew she made for us. I'm sure it somewhat resembled the stew my grandmother brought over from Ireland, maybe in appearance, but wow. Not good. Beef, tomato paste, carrots, potatoes, water. MAYBE a little salt. Over the years, I started taking a stab at the stew, adding ingredients and experimenting, and, as I started to learn to cook for myself, common sense. It's better now. That bad man's* gone now.
*Stew can be a bad, bad man. Don't argue with me.
Start by finding a cassette copy of Anthrax's 1985 breakout thrash classic, Spreading the Disease. Blast it. Finely chop an onion to Charlie Benante's sick, sick drumming - welcome to your nightmare, onion! Hopefully by the breakdown (which you are compelled to shout back at) you should be ready to sort out the meat situation. I find that the stew beef I get from the butcher or supermarket tends to be a bit too large, so I suggest you chop it down to one inch cubes or so, slicing off excess fat as you go.
Get out your biggest sauce pot, preferably one with a thick bottom (snicker), throw some oil in, heat on low, and add the onion. When you see little bubbles appear around the onion bits, increase the heat and add the meat. You're looking to brown the meat here without burning the onion, so be sure to keep an eye on it, stirring occasionally, while you tend to the veggies.
(Of course, I was too lazy to heed my own advice, and not only used a frying pan, but also simply left the giant chunks of beef as they were...It's just a matter of preference. I've had stews where the cook decided to simply quarter or even just halve the potato, so the chunk proportions are all up to you.)
While the beef's doing its thing, peel and chop up your potatoes and carrots. Fun!
You should get some bubbling from the onion/meat combo, but once that subsides and you're left with browned beef like above, you'll want to crank the heat up high, and really brown the sides of the beef, like in the bottommost chunk in the picture. Once that's done, throw enough water in your pot to cover the beef/onion mixture, then stir it up well with a wooden spoon, making sure to thoroughly scrape the bottom of the pot so nothing sticks. Add the potatoes and carrots and bring it all to a boil. Add the peas, string beans, and corn as well. If you're using canned goods, make sure to drain them first. Add the parsley, oregano, savory, salt, and peppers. It should look something like this:
At this point you'll probably have hit track five, The Enemy. This is not a good song. Every great album has that one song that almost ruins the party, and this one is it. If your hands aren't too dirty, definitely skip it. Anthrax has since done much better songs about the evils of Nazi Germany, and the first track on Side 2, Aftershock, wails. IT. WAILS.
Once the stew is boiling, turn the heat down low, and add your liquid ingredients - A1, HP (maybe the best sauce ever), Guinness (drink half of it first), Frank's Red Hot, and the Lee and Perrins. That last one is crucial - the flavor of the stew is really enhanced by the Worchestershire sauce. I find that if the stew's ever a little off, some tweaking with the Lee and Perrins will fix things. Also, make sure to stir every few minutes from here on out to keep anything from sticking to the bottom and burning.
Next, add the tomato paste. The rest of this adventure hinges on how thick you want your stew. The thicker the stew, the more tomato paste you add. If the whole thing gets too watery for you, then don't panic, because it will just cook down into a thicker mix eventually, especially since you want this to cook for hours. If it's too watery, simply let it cook without a lid and you'll be okay.
If the stew is at your preferred consistency, cover, reduce heat, and let it simmer. Ideally, you want to leave it like this for at least three hours, but you can have at it once the vegetables are tender if you're in a hurry for some odd reason. Maybe that's Anthrax's fault! They did get you worked up, I know. Now would be a good time to switch to something heavy but slower, like Tool, or Mastodon if it's snowing.
When you're ready to serve, slice up some Italian bread, dole the stew out to bowls, and enjoy. Sometimes I'll put some in a thermos so I can spray some in my face while bike riding, it really gets the blood pumping. You could also just carve out the end of the bread and pour the stew in there like a badass medieval warrior, but then you better have a lot of Blind Guardian on your iPod.
I love the rock and roll advice! Funny!
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