2 ounces dried mushrooms, soaked in 2 cups of hot water
1 cup red vermouth
2 cups reserved liquid from mushroom soak
2 cups of water
3 small parsnips, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces
2 carrots, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces
Handful of fingerling potatoes halved lengthwise, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 leeks, halved lengthwise, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 tablespoon prepared horseradish
1 tablespoon coarse-grained mustard
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
To serve:
¼ cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
Takes ,
serves 8.
Instructions
Preheat oven to 325°F.
Prepare veal: cut large cut of meat into smaller 1½-inch pieces, trimming away and discarding excess fat. Spread meat out on a tray lined with paper towels to dry for approximately 15 minutes.
Prepare stew: Warm a 6-8 quart Dutch oven on stovetop over moderate heat. Add oil and when shimmering add pancetta, stirring it about in the pan until browned, about 5 minutes. Remove pancetta to a paper towel-lined plate.
Season the veal with salt and pepper then transfer about ⅓ of the quantity to the Dutch oven, spreading it out evenly in the pan so that pieces do not touch. Brown the meat completely by turning it on all sides. Transfer browned pieces to a bowl. Continue adding quantities of meat until all of the veal is browned.
Add the mirepoix of onions, celery, and carrots. Stir into the pot scraping up browned bits, cooking until soft.
Add garlic, tomato paste, oregano, rosemary, thyme and mushrooms plus cooked pancetta. Stir and cook for about 2 minutes or until fragrant. Stir in vermouth then increase heat slightly to boil off about ½ the quantity of liquid.
Add the mushroom liquid and water then bring to a boil. As soon as it boils, stir in the veal and any juice in the bowl. Cover, transfer to oven and cook for 30 minutes.
Using oven mitts, remove pot from oven and uncover. Stir in vegetables. Crumple a piece of parchment paper then flatten it back out and push it down to sit flat on the surface of the stew. Using mitts, return lid to pot. Transfer back to oven to cook for an additional 90 minutes.
Once cooked, remove from oven and add the horseradish, mustard and balsamic. Taste then season with salt and pepper. Leave stew to cool to room temperature. Refrigerate overnight.
To serve: Heat stew over moderate heat. Stir in chopped flat-leaf parsley just before serving.
2 ounces dried mushrooms, soaked in 2 cups of hot water
1 cup red vermouth
2 cups reserved liquid from mushroom soak
2 cups of water
3 small parsnips, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces
2 carrots, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces
Handful of fingerling potatoes halved lengthwise, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 leeks, halved lengthwise, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 tablespoon prepared horseradish
1 tablespoon coarse-grained mustard
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
To serve:
¼ cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
Directions
Preheat oven to 325°F.
Prepare veal: cut large cut of meat into smaller 1½-inch pieces, trimming away and discarding excess fat. Spread meat out on a tray lined with paper towels to dry for approximately 15 minutes.
Prepare stew: Warm a 6-8 quart Dutch oven on stovetop over moderate heat. Add oil and when shimmering add pancetta, stirring it about in the pan until browned, about 5 minutes. Remove pancetta to a paper towel-lined plate.
Season the veal with salt and pepper then transfer about ⅓ of the quantity to the Dutch oven, spreading it out evenly in the pan so that pieces do not touch. Brown the meat completely by turning it on all sides. Transfer browned pieces to a bowl. Continue adding quantities of meat until all of the veal is browned.
Add the mirepoix of onions, celery, and carrots. Stir into the pot scraping up browned bits, cooking until soft.
Add garlic, tomato paste, oregano, rosemary, thyme and mushrooms plus cooked pancetta. Stir and cook for about 2 minutes or until fragrant. Stir in vermouth then increase heat slightly to boil off about ½ the quantity of liquid.
Add the mushroom liquid and water then bring to a boil. As soon as it boils, stir in the veal and any juice in the bowl. Cover, transfer to oven and cook for 30 minutes.
Using oven mitts, remove pot from oven and uncover. Stir in vegetables. Crumple a piece of parchment paper then flatten it back out and push it down to sit flat on the surface of the stew. Using mitts, return lid to pot. Transfer back to oven to cook for an additional 90 minutes.
Once cooked, remove from oven and add the horseradish, mustard and balsamic. Taste then season with salt and pepper. Leave stew to cool to room temperature. Refrigerate overnight.
To serve: Heat stew over moderate heat. Stir in chopped flat-leaf parsley just before serving.
Serve with biscuits or warmed bread.
Veal Stew Recipe
5 / 5. 1
Morsels of grain-fed veal stewed juicy and tender with assorted vegetables, dry vermouth, fresh herbs and fragrant flavour enhancers…
This delicious VEAL STEW RECIPE delivers a bit of comfort in every bowl.
Let me give you a little preview of this sensational VEAL STEW RECIPE: you’ll do some cutting, trimming, dicing, and chopping—all pretty easy, so don’t worry too much about your knife skills. Then we sear tender veal shoulder along with rich pancetta and sauté a fragrant mirepoix. After that, we build a richly flavoured stewing broth, add assorted veggies, and slow cook the entire dish as your home or cottage fills with appetizing aromas. Keep reading, friends; delicious is in the works!
Before listing our expert tips and suggestions on preparation, we want to invite you to visit THINKVEAL.CA. Their wonderful website offers lots of details on all the ways you can prepare veal. They also have an excellent guide on different cuts, plus suggestions on cooking, doneness, and additional interesting resources. Additionally, don’t forget to also check out these popular WATC recipes too: our VEAL KOFTA RECIPE and this GRILLED VEAL RIB CHOP recipe.
Now, some additional details on making this VEAL STEW RECIPE:
INGREDIENTS
In planning this hearty, homemade stew recipe, we broke down the preparation into four sections, each one relative to a gathering of ingredients. In this first section, we partnered the principal ingredient, veal shoulder, with a smoked Italian pancetta.
MIREPOIX
The next ingredient category created for this stew recipe is the mirepoix, a classic French culinary flavour base. We went with the traditional mirepoix of diced onions, carrots and celery cooked slowly in a fat such as butter or vegetable oil. If you’d like to add different flavours to this recipe, consider variations on these ingredients like bell peppers, leeks, parsnip, celery root or kohlrabi.
AROMATICS
Next are the aromatics, combinations of vegetables, herbs, and spices. Together they create a deep, fragrant flavour foundation, especially in this VEAL STEW RECIPE. We included tomato paste, grated garlic, dried oregano, black trumpet mushrooms, and then three fresh herbs: bay leaves, thyme, and rosemary.
FRESH VEGETABLES
This final grouping of ingredients includes the chopped vegetables that are added to the pot right before the final stewing. We included leeks, carrots, fingerling potatoes, and parsnips, adding hearty flavours. Other options for a stew such as this include cabbage, pearl onions, cremini mushrooms, squash, peas, rutabaga, turnip, tomatoes, and many others. Pick three to six of your favourites and make it your own.
VEAL SHOULDER
We wanted to provide specifics on the veal used to make this stew. We opted for what we consider to be the most perfect stewing meat available, veal shoulder. Veal is rich in protein, low in calories and dense with nutrients like vitamin B6, zinc and niacin. Grain-fed veal also has a pleasing and easily identifiable reddish-pink colour compared to the pale meat that comes from the milk-fed variety. This premium shoulder cut contains an ideal balance of lean meat, connective tissue, and cartilage that breaks down slowly during braising to create a rich, gelatinous sauce.
In selecting veal shoulder, we asked the butcher for a piece of meat that had a bit of marbling and some fatty sections, understanding we’d trim most away. Buying a boneless shoulder and cutting it into roughly 2-inch pieces yields better moisture and texture control. That said, some stores only offer pre-cut veal stew meat. Using it will still create a wonderful finished dish.
Once the meat is cut, spread it out on a paper towel-lined baking tray or flat pan to remove excess moisture, and season with kosher salt and black pepper. Drying the meat a bit means it will have a pleasing, caramelized sear when it hits the pot.
DUTCH OVEN
We suggest making this VEAL STEW RECIPE in either a stew pot or a Dutch oven. Both usually feature shorter walls and thick heat-retaining walls. They also boast thick bottoms that better distribute an even heat when the meats are first seared. Usually crafted in enamelled cast iron or heavy ceramic, we find them best for slow-cooking stews, braising meat, and oven use. Looking at the above photo, you might be thinking, “Why’d you include a piece of parchment paper in there, Nik?” Ah, the things we do to get a recipe perfect. It’s called a cartouche, and I’ll explain how it’s used down below.
HOW TO MAKE STEW
The first step in making a stew is to sear the meat. In this recipe, we opted not to use olive oil or vegetable oil and instead went with a natural fat—rendered pancetta fat. PANCETTA is an Italian salt-cured pork belly that is seasoned with spices like black pepper, nutmeg, and fennel, and then air-dried rather than smoked.
In this recipe, adding it to the pot, heated between medium heat and medium-high heat, the little cubes of pork belly melt as the fat renders and the meat sears. It delivers a pleasing saltiness to the pot while also cooking up the pork to a rich golden brown. Once the pancetta is slightly crispy, remove it from the Dutch oven, leaving the hot fat within.
SEARING THE VEAL
With the pot still set on moderate heat and the pancetta fat hot and shimmering, we sear the chunks of veal, helping keep the meat tender while cooking. Don’t rush and make sure not to overcrowd the pan. The meat needs room for the juices to evaporate and keep the surface dry. Overcrowding leaves moisture in the pot, causing the meat to boil or steam in the pan rather than sear.
Give each side of the meat time to develop a rich, uneven, mahogany-coloured crust. This crust is the result of the caramelization of surface proteins and sugars, achieved by the heat and hot fat. When the morsels are seared to your liking, transfer them to a bowl. The seared veal and pancetta will both be added back into the pot shortly.
SAUTÉING THE MIREPOIX
Do not delay; as soon as you’ve scooped up the seared veal, hit the pot straight away with that mix of diced onions, carrot and celery. Stir them about in the stewing pot and marvel at the pleasing aromas. You just know this stew is going to be amazing. Stir the veggies every so often until the onions and celery go soft and translucent, then add the aromatics.
BUILDING FLAVOUR WITH AROMATICS
As mentioned above, the aromatics help create a foundation of deep, fragrant flavour. I like to add them all at once along with the pancetta, then stir to blend everything together. Make sure to watch the VIDEO attached to this recipe to see how I include the mushrooms in this recipe. Rehydrating dried mushrooms—chanterelles, morels, shiitake, porcini or the black trumpet mushrooms we used—then adding both them and the liquid to a stew adds texture and visual appeal, plus a concentrated burst of savoury flavour from the soaking liquid. That umami transforms a simple broth into an amazingly rich, deep-tasting dish.
STEWING LIQUIDS
Three stewing liquids are then added to the pot: dry vermouth, the liquid from the soaked mushrooms, and water. Please note that we add the vermouth first to deglaze the pot, stirring it with the veggies and aromatics. Once it’s reduced by half, we add the mushroom liquid and water. Though we could have used red wine, chicken broth, or a rich beef stock, our goal was a more subtle flavouring that wouldn’t overpower the flavour of the veal.
Once all the liquids are added to the pot, stir everything together, then add the veal. Cover and transfer the pot to the oven to cook for 30 minutes. Cooking the veal for a bit before adding the vegetables gives the meat time to cook and become tender while preventing the vegetables from turning to mush.
ADDING THE VEGETABLES
Adding the vegetables to the stew pot is easy as long as you remember to keep those oven mitts handy—remember, that lid is hot! Add the leeks, carrots, parsnips, and fingerlings into the stew, making sure to stir them in thoroughly. Bring everything up from the bottom of the pot to make sure all the ingredients are evenly distributed. And now about that parchment paper…
CARTOUCHE
Here’s a nifty and important trick a chef taught me years ago; adding a cartouche to a stew like this is a game-changer. In culinary speak, a cartouche is a custom-cut oval, round, or triangular piece of parchment paper used as a “false lid” over a soup, sauce, or braised dish. It lets steam escape while keeping food submerged and stopping a skin from forming on the surface. The meat stays tender and juicy, and everything cooks evenly. LOVE.
FLAVOUR ENHANCERS
OK, I’ll admit it, there’s the second game-changer in this VEAL STEW RECIPE: flavour enhancers. I used this same concept for our famous BEEF STEW with great success. For this recipe, feel free to add a tablespoon or two of a favourite mustard, condiment, vinegar or anything else that you think might pop the flavour of stew.
We went with a grain mustard, an extra-hot prepared horseradish and an aged balsamic vinegar. Stir them in, taste, then season with salt and pepper. Then we wait.
SERVING NEXT DAY
Wait? What?! Exactly. We’re asking you to wait until the next day to reheat this sensational VEAL STEW RECIPE, add some chopped parsley and enjoy. In our experience, the flavours deepen, the meat is extra tender, and perhaps the anticipation itself gets those taste buds jumping.
Serve this stew as is or with rice or noodles. You may also enjoy it with a beautiful glass of red or white wine and perhaps our IRISH SODA BREAD, these cheesy BUTTERMILK BISCUITS, or these lovely MENNONITE POTATO DINNER ROLLS. Good for dipping, and yes, sop up the tasty stewing liquid as you go.
PIN IT!
This delicious meal idea is so wonderful, we suggest you PIN the recipe to a dinner, stew or weekend meal idea board on PINTEREST or BOOKMARK this tab for easy access. SHARE it with friends so they can make it too. We’d also appreciate seeing pics of all the delicious dishes you’re making these days. Use #weekendatthecottage when you post those pics on Facebook and Instagram. Thanks!
A VEAL STEW RECIPE your friends and family are sure to enjoy!
2 ounces dried mushrooms, soaked in 2 cups of hot water
1 cup red vermouth
2 cups reserved liquid from mushroom soak
2 cups of water
3 small parsnips, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces
2 carrots, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces
Handful of fingerling potatoes halved lengthwise, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 leeks, halved lengthwise, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 tablespoon prepared horseradish
1 tablespoon coarse-grained mustard
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
To serve:
¼ cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
Directions
Preheat oven to 325°F.
Prepare veal: cut large cut of meat into smaller 1½-inch pieces, trimming away and discarding excess fat. Spread meat out on a tray lined with paper towels to dry for approximately 15 minutes.
Prepare stew: Warm a 6-8 quart Dutch oven on stovetop over moderate heat. Add oil and when shimmering add pancetta, stirring it about in the pan until browned, about 5 minutes. Remove pancetta to a paper towel-lined plate.
Season the veal with salt and pepper then transfer about ⅓ of the quantity to the Dutch oven, spreading it out evenly in the pan so that pieces do not touch. Brown the meat completely by turning it on all sides. Transfer browned pieces to a bowl. Continue adding quantities of meat until all of the veal is browned.
Add the mirepoix of onions, celery, and carrots. Stir into the pot scraping up browned bits, cooking until soft.
Add garlic, tomato paste, oregano, rosemary, thyme and mushrooms plus cooked pancetta. Stir and cook for about 2 minutes or until fragrant. Stir in vermouth then increase heat slightly to boil off about ½ the quantity of liquid.
Add the mushroom liquid and water then bring to a boil. As soon as it boils, stir in the veal and any juice in the bowl. Cover, transfer to oven and cook for 30 minutes.
Using oven mitts, remove pot from oven and uncover. Stir in vegetables. Crumple a piece of parchment paper then flatten it back out and push it down to sit flat on the surface of the stew. Using mitts, return lid to pot. Transfer back to oven to cook for an additional 90 minutes.
Once cooked, remove from oven and add the horseradish, mustard and balsamic. Taste then season with salt and pepper. Leave stew to cool to room temperature. Refrigerate overnight.
To serve: Heat stew over moderate heat. Stir in chopped flat-leaf parsley just before serving.
Until Halloween
