Judy’s French Stew

Here is the official recipe for Judy’s French Stew. I tend to put a little more beer, and cut the root veggies into smaller pieces. And serve it with rustic artisan bread with heavy cream butter and dark beer.

One note: count your Bay leaves when you put them in, and make sure you get that many back out.

5# onions, peeled and sliced thinly

•     cook onions slowly on low heat (but do not brown) until onions are translucent, and soft — no crunch left)

3# stew beef

  4 T flour

  1 tsp salt

  1 tsp pepper

• Mix flour, salt & pepr in brown bag or gallon size baggie
• divide beef into 3 portions and shake in bag with flour, salt & pepper
• Using hot skillet with about 3 T oil, in single-layers, sear dredged beef, until uniformly browned  (not cooked through, however).  Remove and hold until all is browned.

• In very large stew pot, stir together the following:

Cooked onions

Browned stew beef

1 can beer

1 T catsup

2 bay leaves

10-12 carrots, sliced into 1 to 1-1/2″ thick slices

8-10 potatoes, quartered or approximately  2″ cubes

• Simmer slowly on low-heat, covered (or use crock pot) for 6-8 hours, or until onions have disappeared.  [appearance of french onion soup with stew vegetables and beef].
• Stir occasionally, being sure to stir to bottom of pot, so bottom doesn’t scorch.]
•  Allow to sit 10-15 minutes before serving; Remove bay leaves before serving.

Serve with hot rolls.   Serves 6-8.  Great left-overs.

[Thanks to mom for sending this, and thanks to Judy for discovering it.]