Beef stew: features of cooking at home. Recommendations for choosing stew GOST

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

In the post-Soviet space, beef stew still retains its relevance as one of the main food products, the speed and quality of which in cooking do not require comment. To date (beginning of 2016), the process of preparing this canned meat is relevant mainly for farms, to a lesser extent - in urban areas.

What is beef stew?

Canned foods are prepared specifically for long-term (more than two or three years) storage.

Techniques by which the preservation effect is achieved are sterilization (pasteurization - less often) and hermetic closure. It should be noted the addition of preservatives, such as s alt and granulated sugar - these are natural substances, and chemical ones - under their influence, chemical reactions occur in the product that affect the final safety of the product.

Pasteurization is carried out at temperatures from 80 to 100 degrees. Sterilization is carried out at temperatures from 100 to 120 degrees, respectively, at a pressure above atmospheric. Sterilization allows you to get rid of almost allvegetative and spore microorganisms.

Beef stew at home

This product can be preserved in several ways. Beef stew is easiest to cook in a pressure cooker (or slow cooker): per kilogram of boneless meat you need 150 g of fat, 12 grams of s alt (a teaspoon with a slide), one and a half grams of black pepper (half a teaspoon). Fat can be beef or pork. If the beef is fatty, you can take less lard.

It is necessary to pour water into the pressure cooker (slow cooker): for 1 kg of meat - one glass. During the stewing process (2 hours at a temperature of 100 degrees), the water boils away, there is very little liquid left - this is enough to put the canned food tightly in a jar.

The meat must be cut into pieces weighing up to 30 grams, in this case the stewing will be short in time, and the shifting of the stew will be easy.

In carefully washed and sterilized jars (it is better to heat them in the oven), transfer the meat from the pressure cooker (slow cooker), roll up the lids (boil them for ten minutes before that). Leave to cool, transfer to a cold place with a stable temperature (cellar).

Beef stew from meat of animals older than 4 years (dark red meat) takes about an hour longer, from veal - less than half an hour.

Beef stew: a recipe for cooking in jars

The meat must be cut into pieces (30 grams), stew for half an hour in fat in a deep stewpan (you can use a duckling) with the lid closed,making sure that the pieces of meat do not burn.

Put the meat tightly into sterilized jars on the shoulders (maybe a little higher), add 1 teaspoon of s alt without a slide per half-liter jar, five peas of pepper, one bay leaf each, you can onion (per jar no more than a quarter of a small onion). Place the filled cans in the pressure cooker on a stand (up to four cans are included in a five-liter pressure cooker), carefully pour water into the container. Water should not reach the neck of the jars, because when boiling, it can get into them. Each jar is tightly covered with foil on top so that there is no splashing of fat.

Spices and onions are best placed at the bottom of the jar, and s alt on the meat.

Attention! You can not put jars on the bottom of the pressure cooker without a stand. Banks will burst!

You need to stew the meat for more than two (usually 2, 5 is enough) hours: before boiling - on high heat, then on the weakest, making sure that the steam comes out in an even stream.

Leave the pressure cooker to cool for 30 minutes, then carefully open the lid, remove the jars, roll up the lids (boil them for ten minutes before). Leave to cool, transfer to a cold room.

How to choose stew in the store?

For the preparation of 325 grams of stew of the highest grade GOST (tin can), approximately 180 grams of beef is required. You can always calculate how much it costs. In the context of the inflationary process in the country, it is useless to talk about the cost of products - it is too fastchanges. To date (beginning of 2016), the price of boneless beef is from 380 to 450 rubles. Therefore, beef stew (highest grade) is cheaper than a hundred rubles - a fake, at best with a limited shelf life (Gosrezerv), or first grade.

The label should say “Braised beef of the highest grade”, GOST 32125-2013 is indicated. The words "beef stew" on the label indicate only one thing - canned food is not standard (not GOST), made according to the manufacturer's specifications.

Theoretically, until 2019, beef stew GOST 5284-84 may be present on store shelves. The shelf life of these canned food is up to 6 years, and they can be released during 2014, when the new GOST 32125-2013 came into force.

What's wrong with today's state standard stew?

For lovers of stewed beef, it is quite obvious that in Soviet times this product was much tastier and better. What happened? Why even stew from Belarus (they monitor compliance with production rules) differs in the amount of meat from the Soviet one?

The answer is obvious - the GOST specifications for the production of these canned food have changed. If, according to the previous (5284-84) GOST, the meat in the jar was 87% and still only fat (11%), onions, s alt, pepper, then according to the new standard (32125-2013) in the composition - meat up to 58%, protein up to 15 %, fat up to 10%, onion, s alt, pepper. The new GOST makes it possible to add protein to canned food. And this changes not only the taste, but also the consistency of the finished product.