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It should be noted that this is not a dish you would make from meats purchased from the grocery store. All of the ingredients should come from the same calf, fresh from the slaughter. It should be a young calf, not a grown animal.
This never was a precise recipe. The ingredients can be adjusted to what’s available or to personal taste.
Onions
Carrots
Celery
Potatoes
Beef
Fat (can use shortening or cooking oil)
Water or beef stock
Salt & pepper
Bay leaf
Garlic
Other vegetables (pea, squash, turnips, leeks, tomatoes – to taste)Cube or dice the meat, trimming and discarding excess fat and gristle. Some of the fat can be rendered to produce the browning fat.
Heat the fat or oil in a Dutch oven until smoking. Add the meat and brown in the cooking fat, maintaining high heat. If the heat is too low, the meat will not seal in the juices, and the juices will cook out, preventing the meat from browning. Watch carefully and turn the meat often so that it browns and doesn’t burn.
Reduce the heat, add the vegetables and water or beef stock to cover. Add the bay leaf and a little salt and pepper. Add garlic if desired. If you are adding any soft or quick cooking vegetables reserve them until the end of the cooking cycle.
Bring to a light simmer, skim the foam, cover, and let stew for at least one hour and up to three hours, until the meat is tender. Obviously, if you are going to cook it the longer time, the vegetables will fall apart if they are added at the first, so save them until later in the cycle, but give them at least one to one and a half hours with the meat so flavors blend. If you like a thicker stew, flour the meat before browning. The flour will thicken the stew as it cooks.
Gram’pa’s note at the bottom of the page says; “When a calf was killed for meat, everything but the hair, hooves and holler were used, and the more perishable and least desirable pieces went into a Son of a Bitch Stew. In addition to some of the good meat, it included the heart, liver, sweetbreads, part of the gut called the ‘marrow gut’ and sometimes the brains of the animal. Every cook had his/her own recipe, but it was basically made the same as beef stew.” 😯
My note: I probably had this at Gram’ma and Gram’pa’s when I was little, but I don’t remember it if I did. Once the family stopped ranching there was no access to freshly slaughtered beef.
Enjoy!
twindragonsmum
tdm
Well I don’t have the calf or the dutch oven! 😯 😆
I find the whole thing very interesting, though. Thanks for posting it! 😀
That was a very bad joke. 😆 Chinese food – Persian (cat) Platter. No whiskers, please. 😉
No offense intended. ❗
lamortefille wrote:That was a very bad joke. 😆 Chinese food – Persian (cat) Platter. No whiskers, please. 😉
No offense intended. ❗
When my grandparents (dad’s folks) were newly married their next door neighbors were chinese. They became very good friends and would frequently have dinner at each other’s homes. One evening the chinese couple invited Gram’ma & Gram’pa for a supper of rabbit stew. Gram’pa said it was the best rabbit stew he’d ever had, but where had they found fresh rabbit in Southern California? Their friend replied “Evlee night labbit come to back door; meow meow” 😯 😯 😯
twindragonsmum
tdm
No idea, 😯 but Gram’pa swears it was true and Gram’ma backs him up! Gram’pa is known to be a bit of a leg puller, but not Gram’ma.
twindragonsmum
tdm
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