My husband was all about trying this one. We don’t eat a lot of red meat…or bacon for that matter, so he was pretty excited I had a recipe calling for both.
This recipe is Dorie’s take on the Flemish dish, Beef Carbonnade…”a slowly braised stew characterized by an abundance of onions, a little bacon, and a base of dark beer”.
This dish is slow cooked for a long time…3 hours in the oven. There is also about and hour and half prep time.
There are a number of steps…none of them hard or individually time consuming.
We need to prep/sear the meat, cook the bacon, caramelize the onions and then combine all the ingredients..of which there are quite a few. We have allspice, cloves, dark beer, beef broth, brown sugar, cider vinegar, grainy mustard, tomato paste, fresh thyme, and bay leaves.
All of this is brought to a boil in the Dutch oven and then transferred to the oven to cook for 3 hours. We are told traditionally this is served over wide noodles and that we should as well…so I did.
My husband was in heaven. He loved this dish…said it was restaurant worthy and reminded him of short ribs. For me, I am just not enough of a beef lover to have much of an opinion, but I did say if I am going to have bacon, I want to be able to taste it…and I couldn’t really taste it. 😂🤷♀️
All in all…a huge success! My husband and I were talking and I don’t think in almost 32 years of marriage I have ever made beef stew so it was time I guess haha.
This one is a keeper!
Is this a keeper? 
Beef stew is not one of the usual things in my kitchen as well. Funny enough, my husband also compares the beer stew to a short-rib dish I made almost a decade ago. He is in beef heaven too!
Your stew looks delicious and it’s no wonder it was a hit…we are beef stew lovers in the winter time with the weather raging outside, always a treat. I would love to sit down to a bowl of yours.
I think weather has something to do with it…living in Southern California, we don’t get many “stew” kind of days haha.
It never seems right to serve stew in the summer.
Your stew looks so rich and inviting!!
My husband said the same thing about the bacon, couldn’t taste it. The only time I make beef dishes is when it is assigned by the group, a treat in deed.
my husband wishes I’d make this, too– but I don’t eat red meat, so he’s outta luck! this looks fabulous…like you make stews on the regular!