Prize winning Burgundy Mushroom Beef Stew

Since the wind is whipping 80 miles an hour and they were predicting possible snow flurries yesterday. Which became reality!! SERIOUSLY...when is Spring going to arrive?! It's Stew weather in April!

A few months ago I was gushing over my friend Ree's Burgundy Mushrooms, and another good friend mentioned she aways wondered what those catastrophically delicious mushrooms would be like if they were in a stew.

Ree I love you, but if I had to choose between you and your mushrooms...well um er rHmmm...lets just say it would be hard to pick.

So I salivated all over my keyboard for a little while thinking about how I might make the Burgundy Mushroom recipe into a Beef Stew recipe. Then I decided to consult Hyacinth since she started the whole thing! She is trouble that one! We went back and forth on the details of the recipe.....carrots or no carrots, the order in which to cook the meat...yadayadayada.

As luck would have it my church was doing a Stew and Soup Cook Off! Hot-diggity-dog I had an audience!!!! Thankfully God has blessed me with a church full of foodies.

It looks like a fair amount of ingredients to gather up, but most likely you have it all in your pantry. Nothing too fancy here. But oh it tastes fancy!

If you prefer you can buy Stew Meat already cut up for you or if you'd rather you can buy 4-5 pounds of Top Round Roast and cut it into bite sized pieces, about and 1 1/2 inches each..

I cut the roast up put it in a Zip-loc bag, doused (1 teaspoon) it with Lawry's Season Salt and set it aside while I cleaned the mushrooms. You could do this step a day ahead of time.

Heat 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil in a 6-8quart dutch oven. Dredge the meat in flour, brown in oil.

This step will need to be done in shifts, don't over crowd the pan. Brown then remove to a dish as you add more meat. Add more oil as needed. Turning pieces with a fork or tongs to get all sides nice and brown.

Continue until all the meat has been browned. The meat doesn't have to be completely cooked.

All the meat is browned and set aside and now you have all these beautiful bits of flavor left in your pan. LEAVE THEM THERE. Do not wash the pan or wipe it out or anything crazy like that.

Skip to the wine...I mean skip ahead to the wine in the recipe...you don't need to skip to go get your bottle of wine although I do on occasion. Now that you have your bottle of red wine opened, any dry red wine will do, pour yourself a little sip. Taste. Now proceed with your cooking.

Add the cleaned mushrooms, bag of onions, butter, and the whole bottle of red wine (minus a sip or two) to the pot. Turn up the heat to medium and bring it to a boil.

I had a helper. She unwrapped to pesky bouillon cubes for me. Those little foil wrappers are like nails on a chalk board for me....I know I have some weird hang ups. I could tell you I'm working on them, but I'm not. So get used to it.

Add the remaining ingredients, except the roasted taters, and the browned meat.

Cook on stove top for 20-30 minutes. Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

It's extremely hard to get an appetizing picture of half cooked meat.

Add the browned meat back into the pot. Give it a stir so it can get friendly with all those luscious mushrooms. I think they became more than friends actually.......

Now cover your pan and pop it in the 300 degree preheated oven and go watch West Side Story or Fiddler on the Roof, a movie that will make you sing. Or how about Mama Mia? That will make you dance too, which you might want, so you can burn off the calories from this stew. Bake for 2-3 hours, leave it alone, you don't need to check it or stir it, just go relax.

After your movie is done, then you can roast your potatoes. 5-6 Idaho potatoes or Redskin Potatoes would be good too. Preheat oven to 425. Clean and cut potatoes into chunks, lay on baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil and lightly season with salt and pepper. You can use a heavier hand with the pepper if you like, but be careful with the salt you wouldn't want your Stew to be too salty.

Roast potatoes for 30 minutes, using a spatula to turn once or twice. So they become browned on all sides.

When you remove your stew from the oven, remove the lid and add the roasted potatoes. Serve with a crusty loaf of bread to sop up the gravy. This is comfort food at its finest.

I did just so happen to win the prize for Best Stew! My prize was a ladle with a ribbon....I will cherish for all my life.

Burgundy Mushroom Beef Stew with Roasted Potatoes

Serves 10-12

printable recipe

4 1/2 pounds Top Round Roast or Stew Meat, cut into bite sized pieces

1 cup Flour

4 tablespoons Olive Oil

48 ounces White Button Mushrooms, cleaned, and if large cut in half

1 pound bag frozen White Pearl Onions

2 sticks of Butter

1 tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce

1 bottle Burgundy Wine, Zinfandel or a Merlot will work also.

1 teaspoon ground Pepper

4 Chicken Bouillon cubes

4 Beef bouillon cubes

1 tablespoon, heaping of fresh Dill chopped fine or you can use the freeze dried dill

1 teaspoon Garlic Powder

2 cups boiling Water

5 or 6 Idaho Potatoes, cleaned, cut into 1 inch cubes + salt, pepper, and olive oil for roasting.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees

1. Cut roast into bite sized cubes of meat.

2. Clean mushrooms and cut large mushrooms in half.

3. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in large pot (6-8 quart), dredge meat in flour and brown meat in oil. do not over crowd pan with meat while browning. You will have to do this in shifts removing meat to a dish as it browns. Add more oil to pan as needed.

4. After all meat is browned and removed from pan ad mushrooms and remaining ingredients to pan except potatoes or the browned meat. Do not clean pan, leave all the browned goodness from the meat. Bring to a boil, and cook over medium heat for 20 minutes. Add meat back into the pan. cover pan with lid and put in preheated oven for 2-3 hours. Checking and stirring occasionally.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees to roast potatoes.

5. wash potatoes, cut into chunks, spread on baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with salt and pepper, bake in oven for 30 minutes. Turning occasionally with a spatula so potatoes brown on all sides.

6. Remove Stew from oven and add hot roasted potatoes to the stew, fold them in.

Serve with a Crusty Loaf!

I hope where ever you are you can't see your breath outside and the wind is not whipping your car door open and slamming it into the car parked next to you. Mostly I hope it's not snowing.

Hope you enjoy this Stew as much as my church family did....they ate it so fast I couldn't get a end picture of it. If you are a visual person, sorry you will have to use your imagination, or make it for yourself and send me a photo!

Enjoy!