Beef and Barley Stew
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This thick and hearty stew is stick to your ribs filling and richly delicious. It’s just the thing for a cold winter day.
The ingredients add many layers of flavor. Keep the vegetables chopped coarsely, you want to keep this stew rustic. Beef short ribs or shanks are traditional, but you could also make this with a chuck roast or even leftover steak.
Ingredients
- 4-6 slices of bacon, sliced into small pieces (lardons)
- 2 pound of beef – short ribs or shanks are my favorite but you could use a chuck roast or even leftover steak
- 1 onion, diced
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 Tbsp tomato paste
- 3-4 carrots, sliced
- 3-4 ribs celery, sliced
- 1 pint sliced mushrooms
- 2 quarts beef broth
- ¼ cup dried parsley
- 1 bay leaf
- T Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1/2 tsp. dried rosemary
- 1 cup pearled barley
- salt & pepper to taste
- parsley
Instructions
- Brown the bacon in your stock pot until crispy and remove to a bowl.
- Brown the beef in the bacon grease until very brown. Remove the beef and set aside.
- Brown the onions to deglaze the pan.
- Add the tomato paste to the onions and sauté until the tomato paste takes on a dark red color.
- Add the garlic and cook until you can just smell the garlic.
- Add your beef stock to stop the caramelization.
- Add the bacon, celery, carrots, mushrooms, parsley, bay leaf and rosemary.
- Nestle the beef into the liquid.
- Raise the heat to high to bring to a boil, then to low to just simmer until the beef is fork tender (2-3 hours).
- Remove the meat to trim and cut up or shred into bite size pieces.
- Add the barley to simmer until done, about another hour (15 minutes if using Quick Barley).
- Add the cut-up meat back to the pot to heat through.
- Season to taste and garnish with additional parsley.