/ck/ - Food & Cooking

>>20114002
MSG.

>>20114002
you are adding flour or cornstarch to thicken right?
just gotta check

>>20114002
Look up proper recipes for sauce espagnole and use that as the sauce base.

>>20114002
There's a goulash recipe I found that uses a whole yellow onion as a thickener. Chop a whole onion fine, soften it with some lard, then add the meat to brown and put in your liquids. Worked out pretty well.

>>20114016
Every goulash uses onions as the thickener.

To make the stew thicker, add potato, or peas and simmer/pressure cook your stew until they are soft enough, then stir your stew.

>>20114002
Make a slurry or just reduce it longer, it's not rocket appliances. Use less liquid, stew is different from soup in that it's a cooking technique, you're essentially braising the beef low and slow so the muscle fibers and collagen break down and tenderize an otherwise tough cut.
You can even take it a step farther, remove the meat and veg and stuff when it's done, strain the liquid and throw it in a sauce pan with a knob of butter and reduce it further into a thick and rich gravy.

>>20114002
what everyone else said about thickener, plus for the flavor, you should use boulion to make beef broth/beef stock. don't use water. also add some MSG, it's not bad for you, that's propaganda.

>>20114038
>Bouillon
>When bones are dirt cheap and you can easily make more stock than you know what to do with
Retarded.

>>20114036
fpbp

>>20114002
Lots of ways to thicken.
Flour or starch is the easiest.
Some people use chopped up stale bread.

I like to start with tomato paste, and then add whole wheat flour if it's still not thick enough.

Thanks for all the advice everyone, I'll be putting it to use next time I try making stew. How strong is MSG? Do you need a lot for a stew?

>>20114006
I do add flour to it, but it just seems like no matter how much I add it never thickens up. I'm always afraid of adding too much and turning the whole thing into glue, too (had a bad incident doing this to chicken alfredo once).

Flour or cornstarch
Add more tomato paste to the base before pouring in liquid
Boil it off more
Use a cut of meat with more tendon or connective tissue

>>20114063
Retards are those who use just shitty bones for bouillons/fonds and not actual meat.

>>20114002
Less liquid, more starch.

>>20114107
msg doesn't have much of a taste, but if enhances flavors.
I usually put in as much as I do salt.
how much flour are you trying? how much stew is it going in?

>>20114191
I saw "about 1.5 tsp flour per cup of fluid" so I did that (8 cups of beef broth) and it didn't really have any effect on it.

>>20114107
>>20114199
recipe amounts are never gonna be 100% accurate, you just have to experiment until you find what works for you. if you end up making it too thick, you can always thin it out again by adding more liquid. then note down what you did, what worked and what didn't, and try again. it's gonna be a bit of trial and error, no way around it.
>(had a bad incident doing this to chicken alfredo once).
alfredo's a different beast cause you have the cream and cheese.

another thing I've heard about is using instant mashed potatoes as a thickener, but I can't speak for that personally

>>20114199
125 g roux per liter liquid.

>>20114019
I exposed myself as a cooklet I'm so embarrassed bros

>>20114002
make a roux. mix some of the liquids with the roux then incorporate into your stew

>>20114002
to make it "thicker" cook it 3+ hours

>>20114333
I usually give it around 4 or 5 hours in the pot...

>>20114318
>>20114258
>>20114256
Noted. I've never made a roux before so that'll be fun to try.

>>20114012
Mother sauces may be too highbrow for these boards recently, but that's top tier advice.
sufficient for this board may be 2 Tblsp. flour made into a slurry with 1/4 C. water.
MSG is fine, but a few heavy dashes of Worcestershire sauce or even mushroom ketchup or powder would lend a deeper, more complex flavor.

>>20114342
It's easier that you might think.
Equal parts flour into melted butter over med high-high heat. stir constantly with a rubber spatula just until it begins to pull away from the pan while stirring it--You'll know it when you see it.

>>20114388
You have to keep in mind that butter is 20% water and have to wait until it evaporates as flour starts clumping in water pretty easily. So calculate the weight loss or use pure fats/oils in general. 6 parts flour : 5 parts fat/oil.

Cover the beef in flour before you cook it.

>>20114178
There's usually some meat on the bones, I'll throw in any trimmings too, but the flavor and properties of stock primarily come from the bones and only retards don't know this. The bones are the foundation, they are, dare I say, the skeleton of the stock.

>>20114460
>skeleton of the stock
Nice

>>20114107
>How strong is MSG? Do you need a lot for a stew?
Very little. About 1/10-1/8 of the amount of salt you add.

>>20114002
Sounds like you're adding too much liquid. Cut back, especially if it's water you're adding. By the time the stew comes up to a simmer, it should be just about the thickness you expect it to be when its ready.

>>20114491
But I have to make a huge serving of it... What can be done?

>>20114496
Water doesn't add any flavor, texture or nutrition to your dish. Watering your stew down isn't going to make more stew. Your only option is to double (or otherwise scale) the rest of the ingredients to your needs.

>>20114508
Yeah I don't add any water except when I'm making the slurry, the rest is all beef stock.

>>20114530
If your stew comes out too thin then you're still ruining the texture with too much stock.

>>20114002
when you cook anything that has water in it, the longer you cook it, the more water evaporates. the chemical compounds that give something flavor do not. the more water evaporates, the more thick and flavorful anything will be. cook it longer.

>>20114430
>Cover the beef in flour before you cook
Yeah all the recipes for classic Irish Stew say to do this.

>>20114002
dont you dare to use any kind of starch, use beer as broth base and then potato to thicken, thats it , a bit of smashed potato, remember a stew is a slow cooking meal, maybe you dont get what you want because you want a stew in 20 min.

>>20114550
this, for fuck sake, this, listen to this fella, is not about adding fucking flour, its all about cooking time.

>>20114550
>>20114577
>>20114582
I always give it about 5 hours in the pot...

>>20114584
let it cook uncovered for 2-3 of those hours. not joking, 90% of cooking is about balancing moisture levels i fucking hate food

>>20114590
Considering what someone was saying about letting water evaporate, that sounds pretty solid... I'll try it next time.

>>20114620
He was right but you do need some kind of starch too. Add potatoes, legumes, oats, barley etc about 30 minutes before it's done, or make a roux in a separate pan and pour your broth in until it's smooth. Something like that anyway

>>20114430
>Cover the beef in flour before you cook it.
this is what I do, big chunks of chuck, dredged in seasoned flour (usually lots of black pepper and Tony Cachere's in my flour). Then, I lovingly brown every side of my chunks. Brown is flavor. Next up is to deglaze with flavor, typically wine or sherry, and next up is coffee in the pan, bay leaf, and whatever spices I wish to use.

>>20114085
If you don’t make bone broth, ad unflavored gelatin.

>>20114002
1. Brown your fatty cut of meat, add a dash of flour to ensure the moisture doesn't stop the browning. Don't use lean meat here, fat is flavor
2. Add some flour when cooking the onions down, this makes a early small amount of roux
3. Add red wine and port and reduce <- this adds a LARGE amount of flavor, don't skip
4. Use concentrated stock or demi-glace
5. Only add enough water to cover
6. Don't forget herb bundle with bay leaf

The pros cook the veggies separate afterwards as garnish. So things like pearl onions, carrots, potato chunks, bacon lardons etc. all get cooked near the end and added last minute.

>>20114063
boulion takes less than five minutes and making stock with bones requires at least half of the daylight hours...

>>20114107
just be careful if you use starch as a thickener, make sure you DO NOT mix it into hot water, it will make nasty jello chunks. mix it into cold water only.

>>20115711
>making stock with bones requires at least half of the daylight hours...
it's not like it requires your active attention. on a day off, put it on the stove, and go do something else. freeze it or jar it. wa-la.

>>20114002
the essentials are to brown the meat properly and add salt. you'll need a lot of salt.

MSG and stock will take it to the next level.

I don't bother with roux for beef stew. wait until it's done cooking and then mash together equal parts flour and butter and stir it into the pot. bring it to a boil while stirring and that's it.

>>20114002
>it ends up being bland and flavorless no matter how much seasoning I add
I'm going to give you a piece of advice that an old chef once told me at my first job. I think I was making an asparagus soup for a special - even though I'd never made asparagus soup before - and after fumbling around for awhile I asked him to taste it and tell me what I'm doing wrong, and why it's so bland. He asked me what herbs and seasonings I added, and then said, "that sounds good, so what's the problem?" And I told him it's just kind of bland. And here's the real kicker, and a piece of advice I will never forget: he said, "if your soup doesn't have enough seasoning, add more seasoning." I know, it sounds stupid and borderline trolling. But...that's honestly the only answer. It's not magic; it's just experience, and learning to taste your food and get a sense for proportions.

As for thickening, there's lot's of options. For a stew, you don't want to just "reduce it". That's dumb. I also don't like adding mushy ingredients. If you're using flour, add it when you're sweating the aromatics. If there isn't enough, you can always whip up a bit of roux in a sauce pan, ladle in a bit of the broth to incorporate, and then gradually add it back until you've reached the desired consistency. Alternatively, it's a lot quicker and easier to do a corn starch slurry (you can use potato starch or whatever; we just use corn starch here because...). Just mix equal parts starch and water and add towards the end. 30 seconds on a low boil and it will thicken right up. It's a different kind of thickness than roux (it was first described to me as "Chinese takeout thickness"), but it's not necessarily bad. It's a lot faster than flour (you need to cook the raw flour taste out), so that might be a better option to experiment with, as you can add a little at a time and see the results almost instantly.