Beef Stew and Dumplings

Watch my Video HERE

• Prepare your vegetables and cut into chunks, not too small. (You can use any veg. you wish)
• Cut meat into nice size chunks, not too small otherwise they will dissolve into the gravy.
• Flour them with the plain flour.
• Get oil HOT in your frying pan and deal the meat on all sides until you have a nice dark caramelized colour. Don’t overcrowd the pan or you’ll finish up boiling the meat instead of frying it.
• Place veg in your cooking pot then add the browned meat.
• Next re-heat the frying pan containing the residue from browning the meat, then add you stock, this will deglaze the pan, which just means it will dissolve all those brown bits stuck in the bottom of your frying pan. This contain all the taste, colour and thickening for your stew. Now ass this to your cooking pot, bring it up to the boil, reduce to medium simmer and replace the lid.
• Cooking you stew by this method will take 11/2 to 2 hours until the meat is tender, if you have one you could of course use a pressure cooker.

Now the Dumplings

Watch my Video HERE

Preheat your oven to 180ºc or for a fan oven 160ºc or Gas mark 4

In a separate mixing bowl, combine your flour, salt, pepper and suet, then add the water carefully a tablespoon at a time until you have a soft slightly sticky dough. It’s important you do not overmix or kneed it as this will make the finished dumplings heavy.

Once your stew is cooked and the meat is tender, divide your dumpling mixture into whatever size you wish, I divide this recipe into 4 which make nice sized dumplings. Place them gently onto the stew, do not submerge them. Now place you stew in the oven for around 15 – 20 minutes, if you like your dumpling to have a crispy top, then remove the lid after 10 minutes.

If you make this recipe do leave some feedback in the comments section below. Also if you want to see the video click on the Image.

Category: British, Cuisine, Main Courses, Meat, Recipes, Stew, Videos