Beef & green vegetables stew (served with buckwheat)

Buckwheat

Buckwheat certainly deserves attention, because is very tasty and healthy. It is widely used in Poland, Russia and Ukraine. In my home it always is a great company for stews, either with meat or vegetarian ones.

I served this stew with buckwheat that I dry roasted before boiling. You do not have to roast it before boiling – I did it because in Poland the most popular is buckwheat which was already roasted. It has a nice brown colour and it taste better.

It is good to fry the buckwheat in little vegetable oil (lard or goose fat should be fine to) and add stock or water, bring to the boil and turn the heat down to a minimum level just to keep it warm until the liquid is absorbed. Allow 2 parts of liquid to one part of buckwheat.

I hope you like it, if not you can always serve this stew with any other wheat or potatoes.

Beef stew

Quite often I do not use any fat to fry the meat before adding to stew, but place beef into a boiling stock. It saves some calories and time. You can obviously fry the meet if you wish and then add the stock.

Serves 3-4

400g stewing beef
2 onions, peeled and roughly sliced
garlic clove, peeled and roughly sliced
handful of dried wild mushrooms (porcini)
3 cups of vegetable stock
1 cup of ale or stout (if you do not want to use alcohol at all use an extra cup of stock)
12 asparagus spears, wooden ends removed, each spear cut into half
cup of green beans (I used frozen cut beans)
half cup of peas (again I used frozen one)
tbsp corn flour (corn starch)
salt
freshly ground black pepper


In a big pan boil the stock and add meat, onions and garlic. Cover and boil for few minutes. Next add beer, porcini mushrooms, salt and pepper. Cover and simmer for about 60 minutes or until the meat is tender.

For the last 10 minutes add bottom parts of asparagus, for last 5 minutes asparagus tops, peas and beans. Cover and simmer.

Meanwhile mix the corn starch with 3 tbsp of water and add to the pan, boil for further minute – it will thicken the sauce little bit.

Check if the frozen vegetables are cooked and serve.