Gluten-free beef stew & homemade biscuits

Gluten-free beef stew

The traditional method for beef stew involves dredging the meat in a flour mixture, which will provide body to the finished broth, but it also adds gluten. I replaced the flour with a little cornstarch, so the broth still has some thickness. For a paleo version, you could omit the starch and potato, but it would be more of a soup than a stew.

This is one of our favorite chilly-day beef stew recipes. Feel free to alter the vegetables. If you don’t like mushrooms, leave them out. No harm done. Stable root vegetables like sweet potatoes, rutabagas, and parsnips all work well in a stew.

This stew takes about 2 hours from start to finish, but most of that is sitting-on-the-stove time. That’s nice, because you can go and do other things, like exercise, do laundry, or take a nap while the stew is cooking. There is also much chopping of vegetables.  You could use a food processor to speed up the process. I prefer to chop by hand because I like uniformly sized pieces (processing an onion usually gives me a combination of onion mush and one large onion ball about the size of a walnut).

When you buy cubes of “beef for stew” at the store, they are usually cut in enormous hunks. I like to cut it smaller. To facilitate the cutting, I put the meat in the freezer for a few minutes before cutting. However, do not re-freeze meat that has already been frozen and thawed.

Ingredients:

¼ tsp coconut oil

1 onion, chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped

1 ½ cups carrots, chopped

1-1.5 lbs beef cubes for stew

1.5 tbs. cornstarch

½ tsp pepper

½ tsp garlic powder

8 oz mushrooms, chopped

1 clove minced garlic

¼ cup red wine

8 cups water

2 redskin potatoes, chopped

1/8 tsp crushed dried red pepper

½ tsp oregano

salt to taste (optional)

If the meat is fresh, pop it in the freezer to firm it up for cutting while you cut the vegetables.

In a large soup or stock pot over medium-high heat, melt the coconut oil. Add the chopped onion, celery and carrots. Stir occasionally and let brown while you cut the meat.

Cut the meat into rough 1-cm cubes. Place cut meat cubes into a small mixing bowl. Sprinkle on 1.5 tbsp corn starch, ½ tsp pepper and ½ tsp garlic powder. Mix with your hands to evenly coat the meat. Turn out the meat into the soup pot with the onions, celery and carrots. Stir occasionally until the meat browns on all sides.

Add the chopped mushrooms. Stir and cook until the mushrooms release their liquid, about a minute or two.

Add the minced garlic to the soup pot and stir for about 1 minute.

Add the red wine and allow the mixture to boil for a minute or two.

Add 8 cups water and the copped redskin potatoes, keeping the heat medium-high until the liquid comes to a boil. Lower the heat to medium-low. Simmer the soup for 1.5 hours, until the meat is tender and all the vegetables are well cooked. (In the meantime, you can watch football, check your email, make gluten-free biscuits, go for a walk, etc.) Add the crushed dried red pepper and oregano. Serve hot.

Gluten-free biscuits

Note: I do not roll these out like traditional biscuits because the GF variety tends to stick and fall apart. Pressing the dough flat and rolling makes nice triangle wedges with minimal fuss. Handle with care—they do crumble easily when baked.

Makes 8 biscuit wedges.

Preheat the oven to 450F.

Stir together in the large bowl of an electric mixer:

1½ cup Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-free flour

¾ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

Blend into the flour mixture, on low speed

4 tbsp cold butter, cut into half-tbsp slivers

Blend until the butter and flour mixture forms pea-sized balls.

Add

½ cup milk (more or less—the dough should just begin to come together)

Blend until the dough begins to pull away from the sides of the mixer and form a ball.

Using a rubber scraper, place the entire dough ball onto a pizza stone or cookie sheet.  With the rubber scraper, press the dough into a flat round, about 8 inches in diameter.

With a knife, cut the flat round into eight wedges, separating the wedges slightly with the edge of the knife to allow room for expansion.

Bake until lightly browned, 12-15 minutes. Serve hot.