Lima Bean and Beef Stew

Ann really likes to have a steak now and again and our usual grocery has very hit-or-miss quality beef. As do most stores here in Central Oregon. We are totally spoiled for the incredible quality of beef that I got at the restaurant. On this foray to the store, when the better steak cuts (rib and strip steaks) looked extremely unmarbled and unappetizing, I decided to take a flyer on four small chuck eye steaks, which I have known in the past restaurant days to be a reasonable alternative at a decent price.

Lima Bean and Beef Stew

I pan-roasted one pair of steaks and they were just awful, tough and unappetizing. This experience should be a teaching moment for me, as in, never again! Accordingly, I resolved to braise the others into a beef stew of sorts. When considering making the stew, I remembered that I had a bag of Rancho Gordo large lima beans in the pantry and that set my stew wheels in motion.

The night before making the stew, I put the beans on to soak and then the following morning, I par-cooked them until they were starting to soften, about 90 minutes. I transferred the beans and their cooking liquid directly to my slow cooker.

Rancho Gordo Large White Limas, Soaked

To start the stew, I first browned the steaks on one side before cutting them into cubes and moving the cubes to the slow cooker to join the par-cooked limas and chunks of onions, carrots, and celery. I only browned one side as a compromise between flavor and tenderness. If you highly brown very lean meat, you risk really drying it out even though the slow cooking will render it tender. Tender and dried-out is still dried-out and dried-out is no good.

After deglazing the steak pan with a good slug of red wine, the wine and brown bits from the bottom of the steak pan went into the slow cooker. Next I added two secret weapons, flavor enhancers, to the stew: a big scoop of glace de viande (a highly reduced meat stock that I keep in the refrigerator as a staple) and a smaller scoop of tomato paste.

This tomato paste is not just any tomato paste, however. It is the most insanely good and expensive tomato paste in the world and one that would be great simply smeared on a crostino. Rob turned me on to this incredible product from Sicily, where tomato paste is called estratto di pomodoro, estratto meaning extract. It is the most delicious umami bomb!

Best Tomato Paste Ever!

Before leaving the house for errands, I topped off the liquid in the slow cooker with enough water to ensure that the limas were totally submerged and turned the slow cooker onto low for about 7 hours. Later, we came home to wonderful stew aromas.

Stew Ingredients Ready to Slow Cook

To finish the quite liquid stew (on account of adding sufficient water to ensure the beans would be thoroughly cooked), I removed a pint of liquid and reduced it over high heat to a very small quantity which I added back to the stew. Then I dropped the immersion blender in one end of the pot and blitzed a small amount of beans and vegetables, enough to thicken the sauce without using any binding agent.

The verdict on these large limas? Silky, tasty, and I would order them again.