Let’s Eat - Hearty Beef Stew

Let’s Eat — A Writer’s Guide to Cooking
Ah, yes, just what the world needs — another recipe for beef stew. I won’t go into great detail on this one. My stew philosophy, with a brief excursion into the meaning of art and onions, can be found on my lamb stew page. Start with a big pan and a pound or so of stew meat. (We’ve been getting some nicely trimmed Angus at one of our local grocery stores.) Coat the bottom of the pan with extra virgin olive oil, then add the pieces of meat and flip them around so they are coated as well. Sprinkle on some salt and pepper. Add water until the pan is a little less than half full and bring to a slow boil. While the water is turning into tantalizing, delightfully aromatic broth, dice a tomato and several cloves of garlic — four or five, depending on their size. Then cut a large yellow onion into chunks. If you have leek available (you can read more about leeks on my leek soup page), cut one cross-wise into sections about half an inch wide. Then cut up six or seven carrots in the same manner. Next, cut up some celery, say three or four pieces, along with some of the center leaves. Finally, peel about ten or twelve russets, depending on their size (we usually buy them in ten-pound bags, which contain mostly medium-sized spuds), wash them, quarter them the long way, and cut them into chunks. By now, twenty or thirty minutes will have passed, so the broth should be ready. Dump everything in, potatoes first. Add a generous amount of salt and pepper, and, if you have any, a handful of crushed dried purple basil. With the ingredients in, the liquid should be within about an inch of the top of the pan. (There are times I’ve pushed it to the brim, but until some of the soup has evaporated it takes a lot of attention to keep it from boiling over.) Then simmer for about an hour. That’s it!	Also by William Michaelian POETRY Winter Poems ISBN: 978-0-9796599-0-4 52 pages. Paper. —————————— Another Song I Know ISBN: 978-0-9796599-1-1 80 pages. Paper. —————————— Cosmopsis Books San Francisco Signed copies available Main Page Author’s Note Background Notebook A Listening Thing Among the Living No Time to Cut My Hair One Hand Clapping Songs and Letters Collected Poems Early Short Stories Armenian Translations Cosmopsis Print Editions Interviews News and Reviews Highly Recommended Favorite Books & Authors Useless Information Conversation Flippantly Answered Questions E-mail & Parting Thoughts
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Let’s Eat — A Writer’s Guide to Cooking