The Philosophy of Food, Issue #007: Steak and Potatoes

This dish and my chicken and potatoes dish are really one and the same.  It's a basic formula that I've learned works rather well: meat + potato + onion + booze = delicious.  Sometimes the meat is steak.  Sometimes it is chicken.  I've become fond of tossing andouille sausage into the mix, but I don't always.  Today I decided to be a little adventurous and try out some things I learned from the last dish I shared with ya'll: Flemish beef stew.

The Ingredients
-Approximately 1/4 pound of steak, chopped into bite-size pieces.
-1 medium yellow onion, chopped.
-2 slices of bacon.  I used thick cut, but feel free to use your favorite variety.
-1 medium Idaho potato.
-1 tsp brown sugar.
-Roughly 1/8 tsp thyme.
-Roughly 1/8 tsp allspice.
-1/3 cup beef stock
-1/3 cup Leffe Blonde.
-Parsley.

The Process
First, fry up that bacon.  Once it is cooked to your desired crispiness crumble one piece and eat the other.  Then dump the chopped onion straight into the grease.  When it's been in for a little and is starting to change color, drop in the tsp of brown sugar.  Continue cooking until the onion has turned a sort of deep golden color.  Actually, with the bacon grease and all it's more likely to be a burnt gold color.  At this point drop in the potatoes and meat (including the 1 crumbled piece of bacon), pour over the beef stock and beer, and tap in the thyme and allspice.  Cover and cook until the liquid has evaporated mostly away.  At this point, sprinkle on some parsley and chow down.

Double trouble boil and bubble. . .

Here's how it looked once I pulled it off the stove.  The potato really took in a lot of the beer and beef stock color.  Mmmmm.

The Results

I seriously need to get some bell peppers next time I go out. . .

First off, I had planned to toss in some flour too, but by the time I remembered it was too late.

While the allspice worked great with the stew, it was a bit much for this dish.  I'm guessing because the volume of liquid that went into this is a lot less and the quantity I used today wasn't that much less than before.  The potatoes took in a lot of color and taste from the beer and beef stock, but there was something missing.  Maybe salt. . .  It also might help to add in some mustard.  I feel like that contributed a lot to the stew.  Maybe 1 or 1/2 teaspoon.

Next time I make this I think I might go a little more classic.  Ditch the bacon and use butter to caramelize the onions instead.  Use my trusty Tony Chacherie's instead of allspice and thyme.  Toss in some chopped andouille.  I bet that would be divine.

Enjoy!