Category Archives: Pantry cooking

Yet again, I find myself besieged by car­rots. I some­how got a five pound bag of car­rots in my Boston Organ­ics box that I know I didn’t order, but there it was, and there it remained. I have slowly begun using them up, but I think I am going to have to add a car­rot count to my cur­rent recipes until all the orange pests are used up.

This time, I deter­mined to try some­thing else from Patri­cia Wells’ Veg­etable Har­vest. I admit that I am not a fan of her prose, though I can’t say why. But she’s friends with Susan Her­mann Loomis, whose books and recipes I love, so I’m sure Ms. Wells is sim­ply the sub­ject of some uncon­scious prej­u­dice on my part. And I’ll admit, Ms. Wells’ recipes are first-class– aside from the salad I made before, I’ve made a lemon tart from her Paris Cook­book and a riff on her Seven-Hour Leg of Lamb that were both excel­lent. So, in find­ing her recipe for Braised Beef with Car­rots, I fig­ured I was in good hands. The fol­low­ing is an adap­ta­tion of Ms. Wells’ recipe, so if you want the orig­i­nal pro­por­tions, feel free to email me.

Next, three pounds of car­rots, peeled.

Then, a half a stick of salted but­ter. Do not fear but­ter, for it is your fatty friend.

Next, a three pound beef roast. I bought chuck roast, because that was on sale. But you can buy any­thing you like, it’s a free coun­try. And maybe, if you buy enough beef, Matthew McConnaughey will come over and help you make dinner.

You’re also going to need 1 can of tomato paste (6 oz.), 3 cups of chicken broth, and 2 cups of red wine. I used a cheapo Zin­fan­del that isn’t too oaky. You will notice the car­rots have also been cut into coins.

Now we have the cook­ing part. While you’ve been chop­ping pesky car­rots, mut­ter­ing under your breath, “breed like rab­bits in my veg­etable bin, will you? Take that!” you’ve been heat­ing a lar­gish (5 or 6 quart) pan or dutch oven, and plopped in your but­ter. Then, put in your beef, and brown it.

See how there’s room around the meat? That pre­vents the meat from steam­ing, and lets it get nice and deeply fla­vored from the brown­ing. At this step you should also sea­son the meat. Aside from but­ter, your new fatty friend, you will now intro­duce your roast to Mr. Sel and Madame Paprika, or salt and pep­per to those of you who didn’t skip Con­tracts as a 1L to watch Blue’s Clues.

As you see, I have a handy-dandy “Salt Pig” that the Bet­ter Half and I bought, because it was cute and because we are gad­get freaks. But you can use a bowl, your hands, or even the box. Give the roast a good sprin­kling of salt, as well as a lib­eral pep­per­ing of pepper.

Is it brown yet? Not until it looks like this. It might take five min­utes or so to get to this point. Don’t rush it. Would you tell Michelan­gelo, “Hey, hurry up with that ceil­ing, the popes have changed twice since you started?” No? Then do not has­ten your stew. It will be tough, and you will be regretful.

So now you can dump in all the other ingre­di­ents, right? No. A piece of beef has more than one side. You must brown all the biggest sides (that’s at least two, if not four or five– the sides and the big end) to get the biggest fla­vor. If you want wimpy, sissy stew, unfit to serve to any cat­tle­man come a’callin, then fine, dump your ingre­di­ents in. Not I. I browned three other sides…

Mmm. Beef fat. I may or may not have licked that bit right there. I’m not telling. OK, now it’s finally time to put in the ingre­di­ents– first, the car­rots, 3 bay leaves, a good sized bunch of pars­ley, and 3 rose­mary sprigs.

Then all the liq­uids, until your braise looks like this.

Put the heat on medium low, cover it, and let it cook on a medium sim­mer for three hours. If you take it out before then, it will be cooked, but it will be tough. Let it cook the whole three hours, and it should be fall-apart ten­der at the end.

I found the fla­vor needed some­thing at the end, so after fish­ing out the herbs and toss­ing them, adding some more salt and pep­per, and check­ing to make sure the stew liq­uid didn’t need degreas­ing, I added two tbsps. of whole grain Maille mus­tard. Delicious.

Deli­cious served over white rice and with the other 2 cups of wine. I made it fancy and poured the wine into a glass, rather than using the oft-favored bendy straw method of consumption.

As with most stews, braises, daubes, what­ever you want to call them, this was even bet­ter the next day. If I were serv­ing it to com­pany, I would leave the whole roast, unsliced, out to cool, then put it in the fridge overnight. I would then reheat it, gen­tly, and carve right before serving.