Ok. I cooked a stew last night. Here's what I did: 3 lbs lean stew meat 1 bottle Guinness extra stout 2 pkgs Beefy Onion Soup Mix 2 cans Rotel tomatoes 1/2 can of tomato paste some water thyme salt pepper Mushrooms ("baby bella") 1 large onion 4-5 stalks celery 6 bay leaves Worchestershire sause (~1 Tbsp) Parsely Tons of Garlic (8 cloves or so) Now, something doesn't quite taste right. I think it's either too much celery or too many bay leaves. I don't know about the bay leaves---I used fresh bay leaves instead of dried bay leaves. They were cheaper, but the recommendation is that one used three times as much fresh herbs as dried herbs. Any suggestions?
I don't like celery anyway, but I can guess that it's not really a good inclusion anyway. Also, try adding brown sauce during cooking, or after it's been served, that's nice if it's a beef stew.
No such thing as too much celery imo. True story: when I was in 8th grade I had a medical problem. I went to doctors, hospitals, and all the so-called "scientists" with their diplomas, dogmatic certainties, and costumes. None of them could identify my condition. I had ultrasound and they told me they were going to have to amputate. Mind you they had no idea what I had but the "scientists" at the hospital said I needed to have an amputation. I then went to a New Age psychopath in Rancho Santa Fe (home of cults of all sorts) who literally had a crystal ball on his desk. The guy prescribed me celery juice and a week later it went away. I now have two testicles instead of one.
too much garlic, put parsley or carrots instead of celery and nn for so many bay leaves. 3 is more than enough. brown sauce = meat stock, browned onions, tomatoes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Sauce Goes well with everything. And anything meaty it goes brilliantly.
It's either the bay leaves or the celery that's giving it the funny taste---I don't think it's the garlic. It's not a BAD taste, just a strong taste. Maybe too much beer.
If its raw garlic, yes there is, it gives a strong aftertaste so that a couple of mouthfuls is all you can eat. I use about 50 gms per kg meat and thats an upper limit.
I'd take another look at that commercial onion soup mix, too. Every so often some accountant gets hold of the wrong food corporation decision handle, and makes changes in the recipes for standard stuff that's been fine for years. I've also had weird flavors come out of cans of commercial tomato paste, last few years. SAM: 50 grams of garlic per kg is much more than Ben used. Although myself I wouldn't go over four cloves in that recipe, and I like garlic. And the celery is as likely a culprit as any, actually, so what am I saying - - - good luck. Sounds like good food to me, regardless.
Celery doesn't really taste like anything, it wouldn't make it taste strange, you might get irritated after eating a fair bit by the fact you've consumed too much celery, but if the flavour is not right it probably is the stout or the bay leaves (too much). I don't know about quantities on paper, I feel it out as I go. 8 Cloves of garlic does seem a lot, but so does 3 lbs of meat. And it's very easy to tell when too much garlic is the culprit. It might not be anything to do with your ingredients but how you put them together. If you like (as an outlandish example) boiled raw onion and garlic in water before adding raw meat and etc, that would be a really fucked up taste. What someone does with 3 lbs of meat, an onion, 8 cloves of garlic, etc etc can end up totally unlike what someone else does with the same thing. Can you remember the sequence of events that went in to making this stew?
Well, that's undoubtedly one problem right there. I would have first browned the meat and onion a little bit, then put in the things like the can of tomatoes and onion soup mix, then put the vegetables in that. Onion especially shouldn't be stewed from raw, it puts a wierd dank taste through everything. I feel onion has to be fried a bit or raw, just letting it wilt in liquid or steam makes it revolting.
Eww.. First you should brown off the onions.. essential in anything you cook that involves onions. You can't just add raw onions and let it stew.. the same with the garlic.. Then you should have lightly coated the meat with some flour and browned that off and then added the garlic (4 large cloves would have probably been enough since you want flavour and not something that can be overpowering). Then added your vegetables and herbs.. 6 bay leaves is way too much, 3 would have been more than enough.. stirred it around and scraped off the tasty stuff off the bottom of the pan (the remnants of the flour on the beef with the onions and garlic) and added your liquids. And you could have foregone the onion soup mix since you were already using quite a bit of herbs and onions anyway. I've never heard of anyone using soup mix in stews before. Just use liquid stock instead.. so half stock (flavour of your choice) and half stout.. I usually use red wine with liquid stock. Then either let it simmer slowly for a few hours or put it in a crockpot and stick it in the oven for a few hours. The flour helps thicken the sauce too. Top it with some stock (liquid stock) if it starts to get a bit dry and let it slowly cook until the meat can be sliced with a spoon is how I usually judge when it's ready.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
The problem was that you neglected to invite me over to help you out! If I were there I could have tasted your concoction as you were preparing it and given you a better opinion as to what ingredients were needed more or less of.:itold:
Gently saute the meat, onions, mushrooms and garlic in a pan with a small amount of water and oil. When the water boils off transfer to the slow cooker...done! The mushrooms in particular have to absorb lots of oil before simmering in water.
