What’s Better Than Beef Stew? This Carbonnade Beef Stew Recipe With Belgian Beer, Beef, and Onions (2024)

FAQs

What does carbonnade mean in cooking? ›

: a beef stew cooked in beer.

Belgium produces great ales, and for this recipe, a Belgian dubbel — one that's dark with a malty sweetness — works really well. It's the style typically used in a carbonnade. Try one of these Belgian-style ales (or a similar beer) that you can usually find at a local store.

Cooking with beer gives your food a deeper and earthier flavor. It is perfect for dishes like soup, stew, chili, and even baked goods. You can use it in just about any cooking technique like braising, deglazing, marinating, simmering, baking, and more.

I almost always add some beef bouillon crystals to my stew, it helps oomph (yes, a technical term) the beefiness of the stock. Sometimes also use a few shots of worcestershire sauce or soy sauce - both will also add some oomph to the flavor.

noun,plural car·bon·nades [kahr-buh-nahdz; French kar-baw-nad]. Belgian Cooking. a thick stew of beef, onions, herbs, etc., cooked in beer.

a dish of beef (= meat from a cow) and onions cooked slowly in beer at a low heat: Beer-braised beef carbonnade was the highlight of the meal.

The classic choice of beer for Carbonnade is a Flanders Brown ale such as Liefmans Goudenband or Vander Ghinste Oud Bruin. It can also be made with a Flanders Red ale like Rodenbach or duch*esse De Bourgogne.

When cooking sauces, soups, stews or anything in a pot, as the liquid evaporates it leaves a residue on the side. This can burn and create bitterness in the end product. Using a pastry brush with a some water is a great way to wipe down the sides, keeping them nice and clean for high level cooking.

I prefer a slightly lighter more rustic red - grape varieties such as Syrah, Grenache, Malbec and Tempranillo hit the spot for me. Of course it does depend what liquid's in the stew. If it's beer, as in a classic Belgian carbonnade then it's almost wilful to drink anything else.

For beef stews, we really like using porters. These beers tend to have a lot of caramelized and toasted malt flavors that work very well with slow-cooked meat, but without going into the coffee-like bitterness of many stouts.

What kind of beer is good in beef stew? ›

There's no greater comfort food than a hearty stew. And Irish Beef and Guinness Stew might be the king of them all! Guinness gives the sauce an incredible rich, deep flavour, and the beef is fall-apart tender.

Heat up some olive oil in a large pot and brown the meat. Stir in the garlic and the onion and let it simmer for about 2 minutes. Warm up the beer and the broth and add it to the meat. Add the thyme, pepper & salt to taste.

Even the best home cook has stared down into a simmering pot of stew and realized it looked more like soup! Sure, a bowl of soup can be comforting, but a true stew in all its glory should be rich and thick in consistency.

The three main thickening agents for gravies are flour, cornflour and arrowroot. The first two are normally used in savoury dishes while arrowroot tends to be used in sweet dishes – that said, arrowroot will work in a savoury dish as it has no flavour.

Originally from Belgium, hence its name, this dish is mainly made of beef marinated in beer. Invented by the workers of the coal mines, originally they grilled their leftover meat with coal, which gave the term carbonnade.

The classic Belgian/Flemish beer-and-beef stew Carbonnade Flamande (also spelled Carbonade) is sure to become a classic in your household - especially since you can easily adapt it to your kitchen, and to many dietary restrictions.

If you want complete authenticity, Gulyás should be cooked in pork fat anyway. The Austrians also have a Gulyás of their own, Wiener Saftgulasch. But this is a thick beef stew. In Hungarian it would be called pörkölt, which is the word for stew.