Beef Stew Experiment

I’m writing down everything as I go, and even started typing in the recipe on my yet-to-be-published and linked recipe page, but then realized that I have no idea how this is going to come out. It might take a few tries before I have a recipe worth sharing!

I loved the onion and mushroom based recipe (see 2/14 post Not Your Mom’s Beef Stew) but didn’t want to do the “many hours” of stovetop beef stew cooking. And, I didn’t feel like getting the specific sort of beer called for. And, I wanted to use up a modestly sized butternut squash.
SO – I am creating a beef stew based partly on the onion/mushroom recipe and partly on Lorna Sass’s guidelines for a pressure cooked beef stew – and using butternut squash instead of the usual carrots and celery. (By the way, her recipe is great as is – I just wanted to experiment.)

…well…it tastes good. I added dried and fresh parsley, dried dill, and a Tbsp of lemon juice. Not sure yet, but next time I’ll try doing all the onions and mushrooms in the pressure cooker. This time, thinking they might cook down too much with the 15 minutes high pressure for the beef, I reserved half of the onions and mushrooms and sauteed them and added them afterwards. They are just a teeeeny bit too firm for this stew.

The butternut squash was fine – yes, 15 minutes high pressure is too much for it if you want chunks, but it turned into puree and thickened the stew when I stirred it after letting the pressure come down naturally.

Hmm – I might publish the recipe in “beta” form before trying it again, but with few onions and mushrooms and having them all go for the full pressure instead of reserving half to add afterwards. The true test will be when we have dinner. 🙂