Not into Corned Beef and Cabbage? Try our brilliant beef stew instead this St. Patty’s Day!!
Pot O’Gold Beef Stew
Total cooking time: about 2 3/4 hours.
Ingredients for stew (8 servings):
2 ½ pounds good stew beef chunks (make sure it’s good quality and marbled stew beef, such as chuck, for a tender stew)
1/3 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup canola or other vegetable oil
1 very large onion or 2 medium onions, coarsely chopped
1 container (32 oz) beef stock (I use unsalted. If using salted, you might want to adjust how many bouillon cubes you add.)
4 beef bouillon cubes (Herb-Ox has no MSG)
Salt – 1 tsp and extra for coating
Worcestershire sauce – 1 T
Ketchup – 2 T
Pepper – ¼ tsp and extra for coating
Garlic Powder – 1/2 tsp and extra for coating
2 lb very small potatoes (Red and yellow are nice. You can buy these together in a combo bag). If a little larger, cut half or quarters so that they are approximately 1 inch size chunks.)
4-5 large carrots, peeled and cut into chunks
1 cup frozen peas
1 cup fresh green beans cut into 1 inch pieces. (I usually just buy about a dozen or so fresh green beans.)
2 bay leaves
Ingredients for Dumplings (makes 8):
1 1/3 cups Biquick mix
6 T milk
2 T fresh finely chopped parsley
Place flour in large Ziploc bag with several shakes each of salt, pepper and garlic powder. Shake until mixed. Add several pieces of stew beef at a time. Coat and then remove each of the pieces shaking off the excess flour and put on a plate. Repeat until all beef is coated. Save flour.
In an 8 qt Dutch oven or heavy cooking pot with lid, heat oil over medium-high heat. Brown meat a few pieces at a time. Remove pieces as they brown.
Reduce heat to medium and add onions, cooking until almost tender. Stir in the reserved flour, then gradually add stock, stirring until mixture is slightly thickened. Add bouillon cubes, Worcestershire, ketchup, bay leaves, salt, pepper and garlic powder. Then add beef. Heat to boiling, stirring. Reduce heat to low and cook covered for 1 hour.
Add carrots and potatoes and heat to boiling. Reduce heat and cook covered for 45 minutes.
Stir in green beans and frozen peas. Cover and simmer for another 15 minutes until all vegetables are tender.
While these are cooking, mix dumplings according to instructions on Bisquick box. Add a little extra milk if too thick. Consistency should be similar to corn muffins or corn bread batter – thick and wet, not dry. You can even mix the dough earlier if you’d like. Just refrigerate until ready to use.
Uncover stew, remove bay leaves (if you can find them!) and bring back to a boil. Drop dumpling dough by large spoonfuls (I use a regular flatware soup spoon) onto top of stew so dumplings are barely touching. Sprinkle with chopped parsley. Reduce heat and cook uncovered for 10 minutes. Cover and cook for 10 more minutes.
Serve stew in bowls with one or two dumplings each.