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Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Kitschen Chaos: Beef.Sauce.Rice. Check.

It was my last week in my Makati apartment and I decided I didn't want to have to bring any food home. So, the plan was to cook something every night with whatever ingredients I had left in my freezer, fridge and pantry--I had to get creative!

Thankfully, I had some ingredients that I could mix and match to create normal, yummy dinners. I made Lemongrass Dory one night, Chicken Adobo with red wine and sage another and on this particular night, I decided to venture into the Beef stew arena since I had a half kilo of beef, carrots, a potato and onions. I wish I had celery, it would have added some nice color to it.

What I did:

Roughly chop all the veggies you have available. It literally took me 30 seconds to chop them, no perfect cubes! Stews are meant to be rustic and homey!

Saute your onions in olive oil. I chopped them into quarters only, no smaller than that please.

Add your beef once the onions start to brown. I always like to pre-season my meat before adding to whatever recipe I am making. It adds more flavor to the final product. I did my go-to no brainer marinade of mustard, knorr and garlic.

Add about 3 tablespoons of tomato paste and a cup of red wine (see the spillage?). I transferred it into a pot after because I planned to make LOTS of sauce (my favorite part of any meal)After transferring add your veggies!

Add 1 cup water (or 2 cups for MORE sauce) and a packet of onion soup mix. I got this in Australia so I guess you could just replace the water with beef or vegetable stock?

Add a bit of brown sugar and slow cook on LOW heat for about an hour or so until you reduce your sauce by about a quarter! Lastly, top it off with some Parmesan cheese!

Serve over hot Japanese rice! Enjoy on a rainy evening!

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