Beef Stew 〜With Syrah or Syrah Blend〜

In our area, we had a few chilly days in early September. It was only 42F when we woke up at 6:00am, and it was very windy and cold when I went to feed cows at 5:00pm. So, I decided to make some beef stew for dinner one day. It takes some time to cook, but your heart melts with the comfort when you eat it! I'll show you a trick to make the meat tender. And please don't throw the vegetable peelings away! You will love the way to use them.

Beef Stew

Ingredients:

For meat

2.2 pounds of beef for stew

2 kiwi fruits, sliced

3 bay leaves

1 bottle of red wine (We used Grenache.)

1 Tablespoon olive oil

For vegetables

1/2 large onion, chopped into chunks

8 button or shiitake mushrooms, sliced

2 large potatoes, chopped in chunks

1 large carrot, chopped into chunks

1-2 Tablespoon of olive oil for sauté

For soup-base

1 stalk celery, chopped

1/2 onion, chopped

1 Tablespoon crushed garlic

scrapped vegetables (vegetable skins from the veggies above)

1 can diced tomato (14.5 ounce)

Demi-glace sauce 

※ How to make easy Demi-glace sauce...

Melt 3 Tablespoons butter in the pan. Add 4 Tablespoons flour and stir until it turns golden color. (Please don't burn!) Pour 300ml beef stock in the pan little by little, and stir frequently. To finish, add 1 teaspoon ketchup and 1 teaspoon BBQ sauce and stir.

1 sprig rosemary

For seasoning

2 Tablespoons Miso paste

1 Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

2 teaspoons sugar

salt & pepper

1 Tablespoon butter

Directions:

1: One night before you make the beef stew, place the beef, kiwi fruits, bay leaves and red wine in the bowl. 

2: Using the kiwi fruit is a trick to make the meat tender! Arrange the kiwi fruit slices between the beef. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave the bowl in the fridge overnight (more than 12 hours).

3: Next day, make Demi-glace sauce. Melt 3 Tablespoons butter in the pan. Add 4 Tablespoons flour and stir frequently until it turns the golden color. Please don't burn.

4: Pour 300ml beef stock in the pan little by little, and stir frequently. To finish, add 1 teaspoon ketchup and 1 teaspoon BBQ sauce and stir. Easy Demi-glace sauce is done. Set aside.

5: Get the vegetables ready. Wash potatoes and a carrot very well. (I used dry shiitake mushrooms this time instead of button mushrooms.)

6: Peel vegetables and chop them. A carrot in chunks, potatoes in chunks, a half onion in chunks, and mushroom slices. Please don't throw the peelings away! You are going to use them to make the soup base. Cover the chopped vegetables with the plastic wrap and set aside.

7: Chop one stalk celery and 1/2 onion in pieces. Add them into the vegetable peelings with 1 Tablespoon crushed garlic. Wrap them in the cheese cloth and tie on top. Set aside.

8: Remove kiwi fruit slices out from the beef bowl. Take the beef out. Wipe off the liquid from the outside of the beef with a paper towel. Save the red wine and bay leaves in the bowl.

9: Heat the cast iron pan with 1 Tablespoon olive oil over high heat. Place the beef in the pan and brown. Take the beef out and set aside.

10: Heat 1-2 Tablespoon olive oil and cook the vegetables for a few minutes. Take the vegetables out and set aside.

11: Place the beef back in the pan. Add the red wine & bay leaves, 1 sprig rosemary, 1 can diced tomatoes and Demi-glace sauce in the pan. Turn on the medium heat. Demi-glace sauce might become like paste when it's cool, but please don't worry. Add little by little and stir frequently. It melts in the liquid soon.

12: Add the vegetable peelings in the cheese cloth in the pan. This gives a nice flavor to the stew.

13: When it boils, remove the scum (foam) on top and reduce the heat to low. Put the lid on the pan and cook for 1.5 hours. Remove the scum from time to time.

14: Take the beef out from the pan. 

15: Strain the stew liquid into the big bowl.

16: Push the cheese cloth gently with the wooden spatula and get the liquid out. The very tasty soup comes out from it.

17: Put the smooth stew liquid back in the cast iron pan. Turn on the medium heat.

18: Place the chopped vegetables in the pan. Add the seasoning ingredients, Miso paste, Worcestershire sauce, sugar and salt & pepper. Please don't put the butter in yet. 

19: Cover the pot with the lid and cook for 30 minutes on the medium-low heat. 

20: Place the beef back in the pan and cook for a few minutes.

21: Season with the salt & pepper if you need. I often use the bouillon to turn the dish into my favorite taste.

22: Melt 1 Tablespoon butter and stir before you pour the stew into the stew bowl. We recommend a glass of Syrah or Syrah blend as a pairing. This dark full-bodied red wine has a spicy peppery note after taste, and that goes well with the richness and deepness of this beef stew.

23: Sprinkle parsley as a topping if you like. This makes about six meals. The taste gets even better on the second day and third day. Please enjoy!

Thank you so much for visiting Kula Vineyards Food & Wine!

Strawberry Wine Jam 〜with Petite Sirah〜

This year, I was making strawberry jam with Santa Maria strawberries almost every weekend! Now, it's September. The season of strawberries is ending. Before it completely ends, I made the strawberry wine jam that we can use for the savory dish. It was so good! If you are still able to get fresh strawberries, please try to make it. You won't regret it!

Strawberry Wine Jam

Ingredients: 

2 1/4 pounds (1020g) strawberries

1/3 pound (340g) organic sugar

375ml Petite Sirah (red wine)

1/2 lemon

(option: 1/2 vanilla bean, split & seeded)

Direction: 

1: Wash strawberries and remove the tops. If the strawberry is big, cut in half. Combine the strawberries in a large pot with organic sugar and Petite Sirah. 

2: Bring to a boil over medium heat. Stir constantly with a wooden spoon. Crush the strawberries with the masher, but not completely. It's good to have some texture of strawberries in the jam.

3: Skim the scum (foam) off. Repeat steps 2 and 3 a couple times.

4: Clean the jars in the hot water. (Use the canning method if you are planning to keep the jam longer than a month.)

5: When the strawberry jam is cooked down to less than half (probably about 45min cooking), squeeze the lemon in and stir. As an option, scrape the vanilla beans with the knife and put in the jam to finish. The jam is soft set.

6: Ladle the hot jam into the hot jars.

7: Put the new clean lids on and that's it! I recommend to keep them in the fridge and use up within a month. For saving a longer time, please follow the canning method.

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This delicious strawberry wine jam can be used for savory dishes. We put some on grilled chicken breasts. It was very tasty! It goes well with cheese, rolls and vanilla ice cream. Please enjoy!

Thank you so much for visiting Kula Vineyards Food & Wine! 

Grilled Shrimp with Arugula salad 〜with Sauvignon Blanc〜

Thank you so much for visiting our Food & Wine blog! Today, we would like to introduce the recipe of Grilled Shrimp with Arugula salad. These grilled shrimp are really good. There are a few tricks you can do to keep the shrimp moist. And the most importantly, they taste AMAZING! One thing I would recommend is to ventilate the kitchen. I was concentrating on grilling and taking photos so much that when I was making this dish the other day, and I didn't realize that our kitchen was so smoky. Probably you can guess what happened now. Our smoke detector went off! Awww...  Now, let's begin.

  

Grilled Shrimp with Arugula salad

Ingredients: 

For shrimp

1/2 pound peeled deveined large shrimp

salt & pepper

1 heaping Tablespoon baking soda

For dipping sauce

1 Tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1 Tablespoon squeezed lemon juice

1 teaspoon chopped garlic

1 teaspoon chopped Italian parsley

For salad

3 cups arugula 

1 avocado, sliced

1 pear, thinly sliced

1/4 cup almonds, chopped

salt & pepper

goat cheese

For dressing

1 1/2 Tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil 

1 1/2 Tablespoon white wine vinegar

salt & pepper

Directions: 

1: Season the shrimp with salt and pepper in a bowl and toss the shrimp with baking soda. This is the key. Baking soda gives the shrimp a firm and crisp texture when they are grilled. 

2: Skewer the shrimp using bamboo skewers. You don't want to have much space between shrimp, and this is another key to keep the shrimp moist. 

3: Brush both sides of the shrimp with some extra-virgin olive oil. 

4: Brush some extra-virgin olive oil on the grill pan, too. 

5: Mix extra-virgin olive oil, squeezed lemon juice, chopped garlic and chopped Italian parsley in a bowl. This is the sauce you will put on the shrimp after grilling.

6: Put dressing ingredients in a mason jar and shake well. Put arugula in a large bowl and toss with the dressing. Place dressed arugula on the individual plates, then layer with the chopped almonds, avocado & pear slices, and sprinkle crumbed goat cheese (your favorite amount).

7: Heat the gill pan over the highest heat until the steam starts to come out. Place the shrimp on the heated pan. Press down on them slightly to ensure good contact with the grill grates. Grill them two minutes per side. You can use an extra one or two minutes before they turn rubbery. 

※ Shrimp has no space between them, so it takes a longer time to get brown.

8: Toss the shrimp with the dipping sauce after they come off the grill.

9: Place the shrimp on top of arugula salad. That's it!

I recommend Sauvignon Blanc to go with this dish. Sauvignon Blanc is a dry, crisp and refreshing wine. It matches well with seafood, cheese and salad. Probably Chardonnay goes well with this dish, too. We like to use the smaller glasses to pour the wine at home. What about you?

We hope you enjoy the recipe!