Instant Pot: Perfect Simple Beef Stew

Beef stew has been one of my favorite meals for about as long as I can remember. It is pretty much pot roast, except in bite sized pieces relaxing in a perfect sea of gravy.

The Gravy Sea. The Sea of Gravy. Pack your hip waders and a favorite spoon.

The recipe that I almost always use is very simple and involves only a few ingredients. Meat, potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic and some seasonings – that’s about it. I have made beef stew with other ingredients such as green beans and tomatoes and maybe some mushrooms and those were very nice stews as well. But, like I said, my favorite beef stew is the really simple one. It speaks to my soul.

Everybody needs a soul-speaking stew. I’ll wager that it is nigh unto a human necessity.

There is another beef stew recipe on this site, Perfect Simple Beef Stew. I first posted it in December 2010, but it went relatively unnoticed until January of last year, when there was a sudden spike in visits to that little recipe with its poor quality pictures. I was moderately embarrassed that I had never updated those pics and hoped that the visits were an anomaly and that interest would quickly dwindle. But, no. Folks keep accessing that post. I guess that pictures aren’t everything. Maybe its the hominess of the photos and the name of the recipe that draws people in. There’s a tutorial, so maybe that is a draw as well. I don’t know.

Making Beef Stew

The number one thing that I find crucial to a deeply satisfying pot of beef stew is to season the meat with salt and pepper, flour it and then brown it in a little oil. The browning process caramelizes the outside of the beef and brings out a wonderful rich flavor. It’s really quite intoxicating.

Sometimes, when I am browning the beef cubes, I will set a couple of the smallish ones aside and eat them in their floured and fried glory. I turn full on carnivore for a few moments over fried beef with its crispy edges and well browned flour bits.

Do you do that too when you make stew? Please say yes.

Other than browning the beef and cutting up the vegetables, there is not really much else to do. It’s important to not cut the carrots and potatoes too small because they need to hold up to the cooking process. If they are too small, they will pretty much dissolve into harmonious oneness with the gravy. Keep them at least 1/2-inch thick; 3/4-inch is even better.

And yes, I actually measured a sampling of each vegetable so that I could bring you that bit of information.

It is okay to cut the onions in a larger dice. They fall apart easily and need to be chunky at the start. Start with a good-sized medium onion, slice it in half and cut each half into thirds or fourths lengthwise, then into thirds crosswise.

You will feel like a mathematical performance artist with knife skills as you prep the vegetables. When you are finished, be sure to raise your hands in victory and shout out in a strong, commanding voice, “Behold my masterpiece!”

I toyed with the idea of changing things up a little bit with this recipe, so I polled my husband and daughter asking their opinions about various ingredients. Wow! I got met with incredulous guffaws, threatening looks, and resounding “NO’s”!

The only thing that received a “Yes” was Worcestershire sauce. John, the hubsters, already drowns engulfs heavily douses adds Worcestershire sauce to his bowl of stew. It was really a no-brainer that he was going to approve its addition to the recipe. Personally, I like my stew without Worcestershire, but for the sake of making a change, I added it.

By way of an aside: if you’d like to know how to correctly pronounce Worcestershire, check out this short video on YouTube. It’s actually very informative. I kept practicing after I watched the video – I think my mouth is not made quite right for pronouncing Worcestershire. My son in-law simply calls it “what’s-this-here sauce”. We chuckle every time.

Everyone has their own favorite way of making beef stew, and I am sure that you do as well. This is not a ground-breaking recipe, but it is done in an Instant Pot, which seems to me to be a pretty groundbreaking invention.

I am late to the party with the Instant Pot craze – but don’t forget that I had stopped blogging for over two years. I missed out on a lot of different things while I was gone and now I have to play catch-up.

My Thoughts on the Instant Pot and Why I Like It

As for the Instant Pot, I am really loving it. It is a wonderful addition to my kitchen cooking arsenal and is well suited to my style of cooking.  I like that the cooking can all be done all in one pot, from beginning to end. I can brown meat on the saute function, then simply add the rest of the ingredients, slide the lid into place, set the appropriate function and time and walk away. When the food is done, I add the finishing touches and serve dinner, often right from the Instant Pot.

I LOVE that the Instant Pot is so quiet. I am accustomed to using a regular-style stove top pressure cooker, which is pretty noisy because of the constant escape of steam and the intermittent jiggling sound of the pressure regulator. Once the Instant Pot has reached the pressure cooking stage, things get really quiet. The first time I used it, I wondered if it was really working. I mean, I couldn’t hear anything unless I got really close to the side of the pot and listened carefully.

Speaking of getting really close to the Instant Pot, I love the fact that it doesn’t get hot on the outside. I can touch it and not get burned. WOW! That is so great!

When I use a regular stove-top pressure cooker, I find it to be a helpful tool, but it can be tedious. With the Instant Pot, however, all of that tediousness goes away. There is no more counting the time lapses between regulator jiggles or watching a pressure gauge or adjusting the burner strength beneath the pot. I also like that the IP automatically starts the timing countdown when an appropriate amount of pressure has been achieved. No more waiting to hear the “jiggle” or babysitting a timer. There are NO jiggles at all!

Some folks argue that an Instant Pot does not save time over conventional cooking. I suppose that it depends on how you look at things. For me, I love that the “mess” is contained to just the stainless steel Instant Pot liner. My countertops stay respectably clean. Once the lid is attached and the pot is set, everything is hands-off. I am free to tidy-up or set the table or prep the sides or simply sit down for a while. Clean-up is a breeze because there is only one light-weight pot involved, plus whatever utensils are used for prep or serving.

My Instant Pot journey is just beginning and I am looking forward to exploring the other things it can do. I haven’t used the rice function or the slow cooker function, yet, because I am having so much fun with the pressure cooker function.  I definitely want to make yogurt in my IP. I used to make yogurt when my kids were little, but at some point I went over to the dark side and started buying ready-made yogurt at the grocery store.

I am already pretty sure that I need two pots. The one that I have now is an 8-quart, but I think that I would also enjoy using a 6-quart pot. I do have to say that the 8-quart is proving to be a great size. I can make large batches of meats for shredding, soups, and stews. Of course it also handles smaller amounts as well.

There are some other upcoming Instant Pot recipes. For those who do not have an IP, not to worry. I won’t leave you hanging. I will be sure to include alternative cooking methods for each recipe.

 

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