Skillet stew with pretty potato circles on top.
We started with about two and a half pounds for four people,
okay, of lean chuck.
So a nice meaty piece of chuck.
Not too much fat.
Season it liberally, bring it to room temperature.
Pat it dry.
Season it generously with salt and black pepper
and then I browned it in olive oil in the skillet.
Now, to the same skillet
into the drippings from the browning of the meat,
we're going to add a slab of butter for our vegetables
and let the butter start to pick up the fond
or the drippings of the meat.
Our vegetables I cut kind of on a big bias, on an angle
and it just depends on the size of the skillet
and how many people you're trying to feed
but basically, we want to look at the vegetable and say,
yeah, that's enough to fill the skillet.
We're gonna autumn spice our skillet stew here.
I'm gonna add some fresh thyme to the potatoes
and also a little sprinkle into the stew base.
Couple of bay leaves, fresh bay into the stew base.
I'm gonna add a kind of a weird combo but it's delicious,
a small cinnamon stick.
We're gonna pull it out when we,
yeah, when when we put this in the oven with the potato top.
It's in here a short time but we're gonna add bay, cinnamon
and then kind of a neat combo of a mild chili flavor.
This is ancho chili.
Not very strong.
So a little chili powder.
Works nice with the cinnamon.
A pinch of allspice,
good fat pinch like a quarter of a teaspoon.
Little bit of cloves.
And we let this hang out.
Already, it smells amazing
and it's picking up all the color from the meat drippings.
When it comes to the potatoes, think one potato per person.
So a small to medium sized potato for each person
will probably cover the top of this guy.
When we want to slice the potatoes,
if you're gonna hold them for even a short amount of time,
cover them with water before you use them
so they don't turn brown on you obviously.
So these are the veggies
once they start to get nice and tender on you, right?
So we're gonna fish out our bay and our cinnamon stick
and now we're going to add our thickening agent
and a little more layer of flavor
with some tomato paste or semi-dried tomato paste.
Good squirt of that.
Give it a little spin.
Then we're gonna sprinkle in just a dab of flour
to help thicken the liquid.
You don't want it to taste like paste so toss that around
and let the flour cook out a little bit.
So we go a couple of turns of the pan
with the Rosso di Montalcino
which is younger than Brunello, less expensive.
Any good dry Italian wine, not too fruity.
So now we're gonna tuck the meat down
into that delicious hot mess, our one skillet supper here
and you're gonna add your bone broth or stock,
a couple of cups.
You just want it to come up
to where the meat and the veg ends.
Nice and saucy.
Then we're gonna take our potatoes.
Give 'em a little shake.
I've got the oven nice and hot to about 325
and you're going to make a layer of potatoes
that goes all the way around
like a concentric circle, right?
You make a nice potato top.
You go around and around.
You get the gist.
I'm gonna skip ahead 'cause it's only an hour long show.
When the potatoes are all done
and the entire top is covered,
take a lot of crushed garlic butter
and put it all over the top of the taters.
Little S and P and that other bit of thyme.
Member, we put a little in in the stew bottom here?
Then you cover this sucker with foil
and you put it in the oven until the meat is just tender
and that depends on how large you cut the cubes
of the chuck.
These were about an inch and a half
to yield one 12 inch cast iron skillet.
And I pop that in there, 90 minutes to two hours
and then take the top off, put more butter on the potatoes
and turn the broiler on
and just let the top get nice and brown
and you're good to go.
(applause)