Apparently, they like potatoes crunchy on the east coast.

Beef stew is one of those things I'm pretty serious about. If it doesn't taste good, and if the vegetables and beef aren't in harmony with each other and just to my liking, I can be pretty critical. You'd think that Cook's Illustrated, those geniuses behind America's Test Kitchen, would have a great beef stew recipe, right? I thought so, too, as I propped the cookbook open and gathered my ingredients.

Ingredients:

3 lbs beef chuck, trimmed & cut 1 1/2 inch pieces, 2 medium coarsely chopped onions, 3 medium garlic cloves, minced, 1 cup of full bodied red wine, 2 cups chicken stock, 4 medium boiling potatoes cut in 1-inch cubes, 4 large carrots cut into 1/4 inch slices, 1 cup frozen peas, thawed, 3 tbsp flour, 2 bay leaves, 1 tsp dried thyme, 1 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tsp ground black pepper, 1/4 minced fresh parsley, 3 tbsp of vegetable oil

Tools:

Measuring cups & spoons, cutting board, sharp knife, 6-8 qt dutch oven

Heat the oven to 250 and put the beef cubes in a bowl. Sprinkle them with salt and pepper and toss to coat. Heat up 2 tbsp of the oil in the dutch oven, and add half the meat. Brown it on all sides.

This is gonna take about five minutes or so- then remove the meat, set aside and repeat with the remaining oil and beef. Remove the browned meat and set aside.

Toss your onions into the now-empty Dutch oven and saute until they are softened. Again, this will be about five minutes. Add the garlic and stir the hell out of it for 30 seconds. Stir in the flour and cook until lightly colored which will likely take you two or so minutes.

Then add the wine, getting all those good brown bits from the bottom, and add the stock, the bay leaves and the thyme. Bring to a simmer. Add the meat. Bring it back to a simmer.

Cover and put that sucker in your oven for an hour.

After an hour passes (I spent the time making no-bake oatmeal chocolate cookies) take that pot out of your oven and add the potatoes and carrots.

Cover and return to your oven for 2 hours, then pull it out and add the peas. Cover, and let stand for 5 minutes or until the peas are warmed through. Stir in the parsley, discard the bay leaves, adjust the seasonings with salt and pepper and serve that stew in a low bowl with some crusty bread.

Some thoughts on this "Master Recipe for Stew" from The Best Recipe by the editors of Cook's Illustrated magazine...

First, the potatoes? Totally need to go in at the same time and cook the whole way. I don't like my potatoes mushy but I'm really not interested in having a crisp spud in my mouth unless it's been deep fried, thank you very much. Maybe it's an east coast thing, because the editorial about the creation of this recipe does mention a fondness for "firm" vegetables. Me, I like them to have a little bit of give. I want them to have texture but I don't want them to feel like they are barely cooked.

The meat is super important-- I went the lazy way and bought pre-cut stew meat, but quickly found that the pieces are uneven, the fat is poorly distributed and there isn't a lot of consistency. Reading up on pre-cut stewing beef, I realized that I would be much better off getting a large piece of meat and cutting it myself if I want something really tasty.

There wasn't enough tang to this stew for me. Maybe it's all the dinty moore I ate in high school after our oven died, but there's something about a bit of vinegar flavor that really brings out the bay leaf and the beefiness of a hearty beef stew.

Overall, I'd make this again with a few adjustments. Despite putting it back in the oven for another hour to get the potatoes and carrots to a consistency more my liking, the flavor of this recipe was pretty on target and it was fairly simple. I've been relying on my crockpot for stews but I liked this method-- plus, since I was already in the kitchen, I made dessert while the stew did it's thing. Stay tuned for No-bake Chocolate Oatmeal Drops and a Snickerdoodle Redemption (let's not talk about the boozerdoodles, mmmmk?!)