Chicago Beef Stew

Back to food...I've been cooking the bare minimum home cooking to get us by through the holidays.  I'm back to meal planning and winter cooking (my favorite).  This beef stew was in the last month issue of InStyle.  Normally I wouldn't put much stock in a recipe from this magazine but it was from Stephanie Izzard, my favorite Top Chef contestant/winner.  I had high hopes but I also had a funny feeling that a beef stew with a set of sweet ingredients (fruit) wouldn't work for me.  It didn't.  It seemed off to me from the printed recipe through the stages of cooking.  Solid effort though. 


Look at all the fruit in here - it's a whole pineapple, an apple, and a pear.  I thought the apple/pear would be in there for their pectin to thicken things up a bit.  It was way too much though...the pineapple flavor overpowered all the other stronger flavors - wine, stock, worcestershire, fish sauce, balsamic, tomatoes, etc.  There was also 2 cups of apple cider.  Perhaps this set of flavors would have worked better with chicken?  I don't know...the proportions seemed off to me.



This is the dish with all ingredients added in prior to the big simmer step.  Seems off, but I was hoping a lot of the liquid would cook off and reduce so that it would look more like the picture in the magazine.  No online link.


This is the dish almost finished after 4 hours of simmering to break down the beef chuck. Does the liquid/non-beef proportion to beef seem way off? Of course the kids didn't like it either. They are thrilled that Wed is Mac & Cheese night to make up for this debacle.


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