Cooking suggestions, please.

[Ptah]

I have simmered the stew meat to the desired doneness.

I'm ready to add the vegetables and I am wondering what order you might add these.

Onion

Celery

Bell peppers

Potatoes

Mushrooms



:shrug:

[mike_c]

1. here's how I would do it....

Mushrooms, potatoes, and onions first. Actually, I'd generally saute the onions and mushrooms with the stew meat and cook them the whole time, then add the potatoes 30-40 minutes before serving, but adding them all together later would be fine too.

Add bell peppers and celery 20-25 minutes before serving.

[azmouse]

2. I'd add all the veggies at the same time.

Keep it simple. Sounds delicious.

[yankeepants]

3. I make Guiness Stew

Reduce the amount of liquid that the recipe calls for and add a can/bottle of Guiness.

I don't add the potatoes to the stew. I cook them separately and mash them (a little on the stiff side) and put a scoop of them in the middle of a shallow soup bowl and spoon the stew around them.

Fabulous.

[hippywife]

4. Always go with

your aromatics (celery and onion) and your longer cooking veggies first. :hi:

[alphafemale]

5. It really doesn't matter taste wise but if texture matters to you

The bell pepper will turn to mush quickly.

And if those aren't new potatoes in the skin they will fall apart on you.

[elleng]

6. Potatoes need most time;

then onion, celery for sustained flavor enhancement. The rest, don't care. Actually, I don't use bell peppers in stew.

IMO!

[Ptah]

7. Thanks for all the good ideas.

I did it thusly:

Onion 5 min boil

Potatoes 8 min boil

Celery 5 min

Mushrooms and Bell peppers.

Frozen corn.

Divide and freeze twelve servings.

[UTUSN]

8. The denser/harder first, in your list = potatoes. Everything else (yours) at the very end.

The exception is ONION. It needs to flavor deep down and from the get go. Oh, I throw celery IN, too, from the start. Why not, I don't know why I bother, celery never has done anything for me and yet I include it!1

Now, some of my family recipes use green olives. For me, these things don't need to be cooked. When the rest of the junk is done, THEN I sprinkle in the olives (& pintimiento). Garnish stuff

[Kali]

9. you forgot the garlic

:P

Onions can be a natural thickener and I like the flavor of meat cooked with them so I always cook them with the meat. If I want onions with actual texture in a dish, I add more towards the end of cooking.

On the other vegetables, it would just depend on the dish - some foods I like the vegetables to be crispy and almost fresh, some need long simmering to blend flavors. Soups and stews are flexible and no matter what the texture almost always taste better reheated the next day.