If you’re looking for an aromatic, intensive flavoured stew with juicy pieces of beef and baby mushrooms, you should definitely try this recipe. Beef stew is made with adding Guinness beer. Its malty sweetness and hoppy bitterness, with coffee and chocolate aroma gives amazing flavour to that stew. At the beginning of cooking it has quite intensive smell of Worcestershire sauce and beer, it’s quite characteristic and for some people can be a bit annoying. But don’t be discouraged by this, because the end result is worth the wait. Very warming and fulfilling, can be made traditionally on the stove or in a slow cooker (directions on the bottom of the recipe).

Try to find good quality beef, you can use beef shin to make this stew. Beef shin contains some gristle and connective tissue and when cooked long and slow the gristle turns into jelly which gives it the wonderful rich beef flavour and thickens the sauce. It’s a good and nutritious piece of beef in very reasonable price.

You can serve your stew with various options: mashed potatoes, goes great with cauliflower or broccoli, you can serve it with gnocchi or bunch of green leaves salad. Sour or sweet pickled cucumbers also goes really well with this stew.

beef stew with Guinness beer

INGREDIENTS:

• 500 g diced beef
• pinch of salt and coarse pepper
• 1 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 2 tsp sweet paprika
• 1 tbsp fat of your choice (butter, coconut oil, duck fat, goose fat)
• 1 large onion
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/2 tsp brown sugar
• 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 300ml Guinness Original beer
• 150ml beef broth
• 1 tbsp butter
• 300g baby mushrooms
• optional: 1 tsp plain flour or cornflour to thicken the sauce

DIRECTIONS

Make a marinade of soy sauce, salt, pepper and 1 teaspoon of sweet pepper and add diced beef. Set aside to prepare the other ingredients.

Cut the onion lengthwise, chop the garlic. Peel mushrooms and set aside, they will be needed only at the end. Heat 1 tablespoon of fat in a pot, preferably one with a non-stick coating. Add marinated meat on and fry it on a high heat, so that it gets brown. When the meat is browned, add onion and fry for a while on a high heat. It’s good to make the meat slightly browned – it will add a lot of flavour to the stew and beautiful dark colour. Then reduce the heat, add garlic, spices (I recommend adding just a pinch of salt and adding more at the end of cooking if needed, sauce will reduce , and if you add too much salt at the beginning it might be too salty at the end), Worcestershire sauce, beef broth and beer, cover the pot with a lid and simmer on low heat for about 2-3 hours. Don’t bother with the smell of beer mixed with Worcestershire sauce, at the beginning it will be very intensive, but after alcohol evaporates it will get more gentle.

When the meat is tender, heat a tablespoon of butter in a pan and brown the mushrooms on it. Put the browned mushrooms and butter in the stew. Simmer for about 10 minutes, so that the mushrooms remain firm and wont lose their shape.

Finally, if you wish, thicken the sauce with flour mixed with a bit of water.

Serve with cauliflower, mashed potatoes or other veggies. It goes well with pickled cucumbers.

SLOW COOKER DIRECTIONS

Make a marinade of soy sauce, salt, pepper and 1 teaspoon of sweet pepper and add diced beef. Set aside to prepare the other ingredients.

Cut the onion lengthwise, chop the garlic. Peel mushrooms and set aside, they will be needed only at the end.

Heat 1 tablespoon of fat in a frying pan. Add marinated meat on and fry it on a high heat, so that it gets brown. You can skip this step, but frying the meat adds a lot of flavour to the stew and beautiful dark colour.

After frying the meat transfer it to the slow cooker add onion, garlic, spices (I recommend adding just a pinch of salt and adding more at the end of cooking if needed, sauce will reduce , and if you add too much salt at the beginning it might be too salty at the end), Worcestershire sauce, beef broth and beer. Cover with lid and cook on “low” for about 8 hours or about 6 hours on “high”. I always give it a good stir after 2-3 hours, to make sure that all the ingredients combine. In the last hour or so, add mushrooms browned on 1 tablespoon of butter. They remain firm and juicy.

Optionally at the end add 1 teaspoon of plain flour or cornflour mixed with a little bit of water, to thicken the sauce.

Serve with cauliflower, mashed potatoes or other veggies. It goes well with pickled cucumbers.