Veal Stew/Paprikash

Good dinner for a cold night.  Ed and I were on our way home from spending Sunday in Brooklyn with Christopher who made us awesome homemade pasta for dinner. We stopped  for a few groceries, and I asked Ed to get something for dinner.  He appeared with veal stew meat that was on special.  "You used to make something with veal", he said.  I had, but not for a very long time. We came home and I dug out my (pre-blog) recipe and revised it to reflect our changing tastes and available ingredients. I only wish I had taken the extra pasta Chris offered us; it would have been awesome with this.

Serves ~4 (We ate half and saved half for another night.)

Trim off any extra fat and cut  into smaller cubes if necessary so no cubes are larger than 3/4 to 1 inch on a side, some will likely be smaller:

1 # veal stew

Dredge* veal in:

2T flour
Fresh ground pepper to taste

Heat sautee pan.* Saute:

2 T olive oil (heat first, this will also help minimize sticking)
2-3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

until the garlic is browned, then add the stew beef and saute until it is browned on both sides.  Add:

1/2 c sweet onion, chopped finely
1/2 c celery, chopped finely
1/2 pound baby bella/crimini mushrooms, sliced (optional - not in my original recipe: "Hungarian Veal")

and sautee until the onion is wilted.  Add:

1/4 c dry white wine
1 t paprika (I used Hungarian Szeged)
1/4 t celery salt
1 T fresh parsley, finely chopped

Mix well then add:

2/3 c chicken stock.

Cover and simmer 45 minutes to one hour. Stir occasionally, adding more liquid if necessary. Scrape any browned flour residue off the bottom of the pan and incorporate into the sauce.

I had intended to add:

8 oz yogurt mixed with
1 T cornstarch

about 10 minutes before serving but there appeared to be enough sauce of the right consistency that I chose not to.  Next time I am going to going to use only 1/3 c of chicken stock to start, adding more if necessary, then uncover the pan and add the yogurt mix about 10 minutes before serving.

* January 2013: See Browning for discussion on whether to flour meat before browning, not at all, or as Julia Child does after initial browning.  This post also notes heating pan to 400 to 450 degrees before adding oil will minimize contents sticking to the pan.

Reviewed 5/7/17