Two Grim Dudes

Review: Grim Recipe #1

With rapid turnaround, I decided to give 1/2's Irish Beef Stew a try. And following some trials and tribulations, have nothing but good news to report below the fold.

I should have known we were in for a problem when TTK's rabbit-style bottle opener shoved the cork in my Liberty School Cabernet. After a couple of kitchen-dousing squirts of wine, I was able to get the rig lodged in low enough to enable pouring. A healthy splash for the cook and we were off.

Things seemed to be going to plan; meat was browned, liquids added, etc. As the meat simmered, I started to cut up veggies (extra potato, one less celery stick due to personal preference). As I read the instructions, I realized I had made a fatal error. Sorta.

My grimmer 1/2 mentions "beef chuck." I'm used to hearing "ground chuck" but not beef chuck. So I had purchased (and browned, and added to liquid, and was currently simmering) 1.5lbs of ground beef. I was initially perturbed when I bought the meat, since the ground beef was next to the "beef stew" meat, but figured "Hey, shepards pie has ground beef, maybe it'll turn out like that."

At first I figured "oh well, try something new" but as it became apparent that the meat would not stay clumped but would dissolve into hundreds of little meat pieces, I figured I'd restart. Pulled the liquid/meat combo off the stove, and ran down to the store. Browned the new 1.5lbs of stew meat, added it to the pot, put in another 1/2 pint of guinness and the remnants of my glass of wine I had been working on, brought it back to a boil, and restarted.

The veggies weren't a problem, but as I continued to cook the now combined stew, I noticed that the top inch or so of the pot was all liquified grease and fat. Far more than I'm used to seeing. Being an idiot, I had neglected my own common sense, and as a result didn't drain the (now double, with double olive oil as a result) meat portions. Skimming with a spoon wasn't working, and it wasn't going to cook off either. So after the combined stew had already been simmeringn for about 2.5 hours, I resorted to partially submerging a pint glass to remove liquid, letting the contents separate, and removing the grease and fat. The first pint glass had a good 1.5-2inches of fat on the top. I ended up filling an entire soda can with fat and grease before I reached a point where the quality of liquid being removed was equal to the best quality I could produce through my labor-intensive method.

By now we were at about 3 hours of combined simmering. I had my first sampler bowl, and it was phenomenal. Unfortunately, though, I had already eaten half a loaf of Zingerman's Farm Wheat bread by now, so I could barely finish my second (but first full) bowl.

One good result of the ground beef though was that in addition to (potentially?) adding additional beef flavoring, it made the bowl have a good 1-2 punch. First you have the big chunks of veggies and beef. But between the ground meat dissolving as well as the extra cooking time leading to potato and onion breakdown, you were left with basically a mini bowl of soup instead of just pure broth at the bottom. In fact, the only change I think should be made (outside of my double meat and my personal veggie preferences) would be to encourage the soup to cook longer. Fat problems aside, the stew was tender enough to eat at about 1,1.5 hrs, but doubling the cooking probably tripled, or I dare say quadrupled, the quality.

Additionally, I have to say the onions (surprisingly) were one of my favorite parts. Normally I'm not a big onion fan - so much so that despite having the mp3 I will not listen to The Shins "Know Your Onion!" out of principle, and secretly cringe when reading The Onion. I'm used to (and capable of handling) finely chopped or diced onion, but as something of an onion neophyte I was a bit startled by the "1/8th chunks" called for up in this piece. I hoped (and was rewarded) by the breaking up of the chunks into the much smaller layers (kinda like Shrek) that ended up not only adding flavor, but becoming miniature, texturized bits of broth-delivery.

Once the grim fat was removed (easily corrected) this rig was remarkably easy and was tasty as wha. A point to 1/2 for digging it up and posting it. As the TTK said having just had a bowl: "In a word: rustic." Which, from these parts, is a pretty big compliment.

Also, a point to Bailey, who, I guess you could say, was The Hoss That Caused The Loss.

Posted by 0.5 Two Grim Dudes at February 21, 2006 12:30 AM