Best Beef Stew

Prep Time: 45 minutes
Cook Time: 2.5 hours

Grade: A

Make Again: Yes

Recipe Source: Cook's Illustrated (January 2010)

Between Cook's Illustrated, Cook's Country, the ATK tv show and all the cookbooks, I'm sure ATK has a LOT of stew recipes. They are all good, if you like beef stew. I really liked this one also. It was rich tasting and perfect comfort food for a very cold day.

It does take a while to make, of course, but I love dishes where you can get all the work done early and don't have to do much work after that. There is a tiny bit of work in the last 15 minutes, but it is pretty negligible, so I don't even count it in my time.

I did make a few substitutions. I used some frozen wine, and it was probably a Merlot, instead of Pinot Noir. I also used a tiny bit of anchovy paste instead of chopping anchovies (yuck!) I skipped the pearl onions. The biggest sub was to just put a few rinsed off pieces of bacon in the stew instead of the salt pork. I just didn't feel like trying to find it, and wanted to use the ingredients I had on hand. It worked fine, but I didn't use 4oz. I think it added a little taste in a good way.

This one got a thumbs up from the somewhat picky eater in my life, so I will definitely be making this one again.