Guinness Beef Stew

Normally, when I want to cook meat until it's fall apart tender, I reach for my pressure cooker. It does a fabulous job in a fraction of the time, but this time, the pressure cooker just wasn't going to cut it. The problem (and at times, benefit) of the pressure cooker is that there's hardly any evaporation, and if I was going to get the liquid in the stew to cook down into a nice, thick, flavorful sauce, I needed that evaporation.

The other way to cook meat until it's fall apart tender is to braise it in the oven, so that's what I did instead. I grabbed my beloved le creuset and put together this hearty stew which was surprisingly tasty. I say surprisingly because I haven't eaten much stew in my lifetime and never really thought anything of it, but now I definitely know why they call it comfort food. It really does warm you up from the inside out.

Ingredients:
- 1.5 pounds of chuck steak or other stew meat
- 1 potato
- 2 carrots
- 1 box of mushrooms
- 1 tablespoon of tomato paste
- 2 handfuls of pearl onions
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1 bottle of guinness
- a bit of water or chicken stock
- a few dashes of worcestire sauce
- salt and pepper to taste
- thyme
- a bit of flour
- a bit of oil

Directions:
- Cut the beef into chunks and lightly dredge it in flour.
- Heat a bit of oil in a heavy bottomed pot and brown the beef. You may have to do this in batches. Don't overcrowd the pan.
- Add just a bit of water or chicken stock to deglaze the pan. I don't use the Guinness for this because it's so dark that it's hard to see if you've really gotten all those great flavorful brown bits off the bottom of the pan.
- Mince the garlic and toss it in.
- Add the Guinness and a few splashes of worcestire sauce. Stir in the tomato paste until melted. I wait on the salt and pepper since it's going to reduce down and might get too salty.
- Toss in the peeled and chopped potatoes and carrots. Toss in the mushrooms and too. I made the mistake of putting the onions in at this point too and they disentigrated by the time the meat was done, so wait on this.
- Put the thyme in and bring everything to a simmer.
- Cover and put it into a 325 degree oven. Let it cook until the meat is fall apart tender. I think it took about an hour, but I'm not really sure. Add the onions in maybe about half way through the cooking.
- When it's done, the potatoes will have disappeared and helped thicken the sauce. Remove the thyme and add some peas and stir to heat through.
- Add salt and pepper if needed.