Fireside Beef and Mushroom Stew
Braising beef and mushrooms cooked down slow in one pot. No flour, no fridge, no rush.
- calories
- 620
- weight
- 11 oz
- cal / oz
- 56
- protein
- 42 g
- serves
- 4, scales
- prep
- 15 min
- cook
- 120 min
- total time
- 135 min
- water
- 500 ml boiled
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Campfire coals
- Dutch oven
- Liquid fuel
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Canoe / raft
- Winter / snow
- Gluten free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Grab and go
- Needs a cooler
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Braising beef, diced | 1 lb | chuck or shin; carried frozen, it thaws over the drive |
|---|---|---|
| Mushrooms | 8 oz | chestnut or button, quartered |
| White onion | 1 large | diced |
| Garlic | 3 cloves | whole heads keep for weeks without a cooler |
| Tomato puree | 2 tbsp | tube paste travels better than a can |
| Dry red wine | 1 cup | decanted into a plastic bottle |
| Beef stock concentrate | 2 tsp | paste or cubes plus 500 ml water |
| Rosemary or thyme | 2 sprigs | dried works, use 1 tsp |
| Cream cheese | 3 tbsp | or 3 tbsp full-fat milk powder whisked into a splash of hot stew |
| Olive oil or lard | 1 tbsp | |
| Sea salt and black pepper | to taste |
Method
- Get the fire down to coals or run the stove low. This cooks for two hours, so build for heat you can hold, not heat you can peak.
- Salt and pepper the beef. Heat the oil in a dutch oven or heavy pot and brown the cubes in two batches. Crowd the pot and they steam instead of browning.
- Pull the beef out. Add the onion and cook until it goes soft and starts to color, then the garlic and mushrooms until the mushrooms give up their water and it cooks off.
- Stir in the tomato puree and let it darken for a minute. Pour in the wine and scrape the bottom of the pot until nothing is stuck.
- Return the beef, add the stock and herbs, and bring it to a bare simmer. Lid on, coals banked around the sides, two hours. Stir every twenty minutes or so and add a splash of water if it goes dry.
- Off the heat, stir in the cream cheese until the sauce turns glossy. Taste for salt.
There is no flour in this. The thickening comes from two hours of collagen breaking down in the beef and from the mushrooms giving up their water and then taking sauce back on. That takes time, which is the whole point of cooking it at a basecamp rather than on a stove at a tent site with a fuel canister you are rationing.
Searing first is not optional. Brown crust is where most of the flavor in the finished gravy comes from, and you cannot add it back later. The cream cheese at the end is the one fridge item; if that is a problem, full-fat milk powder whisked into a ladle of hot stew does the same job and weighs nothing.
Packing
Beef goes in the cooler frozen in a double bag, cream cheese with it. Onion, garlic, mushrooms, tomato tube, stock, and herbs ride together in one dry sack. Decant the wine into a plastic bottle before you leave.
Variations
- Skip the wine and use another cup of stock plus a splash of vinegar at the end.
- Milk powder whisked into hot stew replaces the cream cheese if you have no cooler space.
- Add a handful of dried mushrooms with the stock for more depth at almost no weight.
https://www.baldhiker.com/keto-beef-and-mushroom-stew