Falling-Apart Beef Stew

This recipe is a version of the beef bourguignon, which is featured elsewhere on the site. But Falling-Apart Beef Stew is the super simple, super quick, and (I think) equally delicious version of a more complicated dish. When I'm multi-tasking and I don't want to deal with chopping carrots or flouring meat, I let the beef shine on its own. The point of this stew is the texture of the beef. I like to use chuck stew meat. It's super flavorful and a super cheap cut. But the pressure cooker transforms it into velvet. Yum.

I like white wine with this recipe, because I find that red wine is a bit overpowering of a flavor to pair with the meat on its own. It isn't a problem if you only have red wine. Traditional beef bourguignon has all sorts of ingredients, including (often) bacon! Mom Renée never used bacon in our beef bourguignon. We were Catholics, not Muslims, but somehow we ate less bacon in my household than the Ayatollahs of Iran. Eventually, I will forgive her for depriving us of bacon (I'm kidding). But I digress: This stew is all about the meat, and letting the meat shine through. Red wine is just too strong. Use white if you can!

I love getting creative with the broth that results from this stew. As I note in Kitchen Essentials, you should never throw broths away. If you sauté something, keep the broth. If you roast meat in the oven, keep the broth. If you make a pressure cooker stew, keep the broth! Broth is flavor gold...it's like homemade bouillon, except it's made fresh with fresh ingredients and it's free, since it's a byproduct of what you would have cooked anyway. I let the broth cool in the fridge, and later I remove the hardened lard on top. I'll use the remaining broth to cook quinoa, rice, farro, etc. Or I'll use the broth to enhance a soup.

When you do reheat this stew, if you're using the broth to flavor something else, but you've still got meat chunks left over, just set them aside until there are like 5 minutes left of cook time. Then add the meat to whatever it is that you're making. I used to do second-day rice or quinoa one pot meals, and I would throw the meat in right at the beginning, which is a big mistake. Quinoa and rice need at least twenty minutes to cook; some grains, even more. Cooking meat, which is already fully cooked, an extra twenty minutes the next day can really dry it out. I remember reusing cooked chicken and having it turn into paper towel in texture.

Broths are a big way that I save time and energy in the kitchen. I might cook for two hours straigh one day, and make let's say three dishes...enough food for several meals. On days that I can't find the time to cook, I use broths to flavor quick-prep items, which I pair with leftovers. Quinoa made with broth packs all of the flavor of a lengthy preparation, but without the preparation. When I say that broth is flavor gold, I guess I really mean that. It's a store of value that can capture and lend the time you already spent to new dishes. I've had people ask me how I cooked something so tasty so quickly, and it's really rewarding to hear that feedback.