My husband and I both love Vietnamese food, and the other day I realized it’s been a while since we’ve eaten it. And, much to my dismay, it’s been even longer since I’ve made it. Well, both of those things need to change, and quick! I’m not sure if this recipe for One-pot Vietnamese Beef Stew is authentic or simply Vietnamese-inspired, but it’s full of ingredients typically found in Vietnamese food, and it sounds like something we will both enjoy. Let’s find out!
This highly aromatic one-pot Vietnamese Beef stew will quickly become your favourite comfort food recipe!
The Ingredients
There are quite a few ingredients for this beef stew, but don’t panic! Most of them are fresh produce, spices, and other pantry staples that are easy to find if you don’t have them on hand. I found I had most of them and mostly had to buy the fresh items (meat and vegetables).
In fact, I was able to find all of the vegetables listed except the banana shallots. I simply bought regular shallots since they were all that was available.
I wasn’t sure if the beef stew meat I bought was beef shin. It was labeled something to the effect of ‘beef stew meat’, but it worked well in this recipe.
Finally, I did have to order the kaffir lime leaves. The recipe didn’t specify fresh or dried, so I went with dried as they can be stored in the pantry for use with other recipes.
The Process
The instructions for this recipe were very easy to follow, and making my beef stew went very smoothly. Just be sure to start cooking a little early because you will need to marinate the beef for an hour. Here is how my time was spent:
- 7 minutes to prep the marinade
- 1 hour to marinate (remaining prep woke done at this time)
- 2 hours 15 minutes to cook
- 3 hours 32 minutes total
There is a good deal of peeling and chopping needed to prep the vegetables, but that didn’t take me too long. I did it all while the meat was marinating and hand it finished in 17 minutes.
One thing to note is the tough outer layers of the lemongrass stalks needs to be peeled and discarded. I wasn’t very careful about this part, and I noticed some tough bits in the finished stew as I was eating. Next time I might try crushing the stalks them removing them after the beef stew is finished cooking.
And lastly, I didn’t have a casserole similar to the one pictured with this recipe. Instead, I used a 5.3-quart cast-iron Dutch oven, and it did the job very nicely.
