Cooking Chronicles: 2nd try at Parker's Beef Stew

Last year, I tried one of Barefoot Contessa's recipe (aka Ina Garten), Parker's Beef Stew. It was a simple enough recipe, marinate the beef in wine (1 whole bottle) overnight, brown it in olive oil then saute some veggies (potatoes, carrots and onions). Set aside veggies and beef. Pour marinade in pan where beef was cooked. Add in chicken stock then season with worcestershire sauce, rosemary, salt and pepper. Add beef and veggies to the sauce, simmer in medium heat then continue cooking in the oven for 2 hours. Since I didn't have cookware for that, I improvised by using a crockpot. Cooked it overnight. The result wasn't great, actually it was bad. The sauce smelled great, but it tasted bitter because of too much wine. So needless to say, I was very disappointed. I had high expectations for the dish. The ingredients and my effort all gone to waste. 

Fast track to last week: I had been contemplating on taking up cooking duties at least once a week at home for some time now. I had noticed that the maids and my mom seem to keep on running out of ideas on what to make for lunch/dinner. One sign of it is we keep having the same ulam every week. It's not the same for literally every day of the week. More like, we'd have fried pork chop this week and then fried pork chop again next week. And my mom has complained a few times already: hindi ko na alam anong lulutuin! So last week, I told her, how about I cook a meal once a week? That's at least one day less for them to plan. (Haha) Of course she agreed. 

Because I have always been a little competitive. I was never one to accept defeat easily. And to me, the failed try at Parker's Beef Stew was something that I wouldn't accept. I wanted to have a go at it again. This time, I won't make the same mistakes. I will use sun-dried tomatoes, instead of fresh ones, real chicken stock and not one made from boiling 1 liter of water and adding beef cubes. 

So as I went about prepping my ingredients, I had to substitute. I didn't want to. But I had to. I used dried rosemary instead of fresh and canned mushrooms instead of fresh ones. I figured it would be ok since it's not like those two ingredients make up a large chunk of the flavor. I also tweaked the recipe a little. The biggest tweak was, instead of using 2 1/2 cups of the marinade, I only used 1 cup and then added more chicken stock to make up for the liquid part of the sauce. 

I started last night with marinating the beef. Woke up early this morning to cook the beef and the veggies then left them in the slow cooker all day. I had been anxious to try it all day, partly worried that I might not like the outcome yet again. The moment I got home, the first thing I did was head to the kitchen and take a look at my creation. It looked and smelled great, same as last time. But I knew that those can be deceiving. So I got a spoon and had a taste. It was good. I had people taste it as well. Ok naman was the answer I got from everybody. But OK was not good enough for me. I had to wait patiently for dinner time for the final verdict. Come dinner time, I was on the edge of my seat as I watched them spoon the stew onto their plates. The verdict is in: it was delicious! My dad couldn't help getting more rice (he was trying to cut back) and he kept saying: sarap ah! I couldnt' help but feel proud. My brother also said the same thing. Finally! I have been redeemed! (Haha) 

This victory is certainly a good start for my new-found duty at home. Hopefully it will be the start of many good results, if not all. :D


PS: I forgot to take a picture! Will try to remember to take a picture of my next "challenge". :)