at Thu, 08 Jan 2004 22:46:14 GMT in
>, wls%intac.com (Bill) wrote
:

>I've cooked a beef stew a number of times over the past few months and a
>couple of times the meat was "dry" and a little tough when eating it.
>does the searing have anything to do with it? The question is did I not
>cook it enough, or did I cook it too much.

You probably cooked it at too high a temperature, or with too much water.
Good stew really needs to be on a very low setting - so that it never
boils, and at most, simmers occasionally. Adding too much water also has
the effect, paradoxically, of drying out the meat - the water simply
leaches out liquid which then evaporates. I almost never add any water to a
stew - that from the vegetables and the meat is usually more than enough.
As for temperature, I put mine on the lowest burner on the stove at the
lowest setting. There's always one burner that has the least heat - find
out which one it is on your stove and use it.

As other posters have mentioned, it's also possible you were using one of
the super-lean cuts, like round (not a good choice for stew) or tenderloin
(an extravagant waste for stew). These dry out very easily. You can correct
for this, to some extent, by adding a fatty meat like bacon, but this only
goes so far and, of course, changes the flavour.

The times you quote I don't think of as nearly sufficient, especially at
the low temperatures I recommend, for a good stew. 12 hours or more is
better. I have a pot of stew on the stove right now that I started at
midnight last night, and I don't expect to eat it until after midnight
tonight. That gives it all sorts of time to develop and also to cook
thoroughly. In 3 hours, parts of the meat and vegetables were still almost
raw at the temperatures I use.

--
Alex Rast

(remove d., .7, not, and .NOSPAM to reply)