Is beef stew possible at home? Oh sure. And cooking it is very simple. It is much tastier and healthier than the store. At least you will be confident in the products of which it was made. Note that such meat preparations are possible not only from beef or veal, but also from pork, lamb, rabbit and poultry. It is desirable that it was a flesh without bones and lived. In no case do not use frozen meat, but only fresh, chilled. So that the stew does not deteriorate, pieces of beef are poured with a layer of fat - most often pork. Usually 1 kg of fat per 5 kg of boneless pulp is required.
There are several ways to cook beef stew. According to the first recipe, you need to cut the flesh into large pieces and put in a dry large pan. Do not add any water - the meat should be stewed, not cooked. And it will let moisture in itself. Also avoid using garlic or onions in this dish - they will quickly deteriorate your home-made dish. Just salt the meat (a teaspoon goes per kilogram), add bay leaf and peppercorns. Place the pot on a very small fire. Be patient: stew the beef, stirring occasionally, it takes about six hours. If you chose veal as the starting material, you can reduce the time to 4-5 hours.
Somewhere in the middle of the stewing process, add half the amount of bacon to the pan. It needs to be cut into small cubes. Beef stew at home has one weak link: packaging. Factory packaging is more reliable. It is clear that in our kitchen we will not be able to tightly roll up tins. Therefore, at home they use one and two liter cans with metal lids. They need to be well sterilized. So that the covers do not rust, they should be greased with melted fat from the inside. Also, the spoon should be sterile, with which we lay out the hot meat with broth in jars. Fill the container off the neck. We need to top up the meat with the remaining pork fat. We roll up the cans with lids, let it cool completely and send it to the basement or other cool place. There, beef stew at home can be stored for up to five years.
According to the second method, the meat must be cut into large pieces and filled with water so that the liquid covers them a centimeter. When it boils, remove the foam, otherwise the broth will come out cloudy. Wrap bay leaf, peppercorns, peeled onions, carrots and parsley in a piece of gauze. This bag must then be caught and discarded. On low heat, the dish should be cooked for about 5 hours, until the liquid level is flush with the meat. We take out a bag of spices. Then we put the meat in jars, pour broth to the brim, twist the lids. Everything, ready beef stew . The recipe suggests cooling the banks for about a day.
There is another way of cooking - in the oven. Pour the chopped meat with salt and leave for half an hour. Then the pieces are placed in sterilized jars, covered with lids and put in a cold oven. They turn it on 180 ° C. There, the beef stew at home is baked for about three hours. The meat becomes smaller in volume, so it makes sense to put together the contents of the cans. We seal hermetically, as usual.
You can immediately season the meat with bay leaf and peppercorns. We put spices in prepared jars, on top - chopped meat and pork fat. Cover with glass lids, set on a baking sheet sprinkled with coarse-grained salt. The oven in this recipe should be heated to 200 ° C. So the beef stew at home should be baked for two hours.