Step 1: prepare the onions.
Using a knife, peel the onion and rinse thoroughly under running warm water. Then place the component on a cutting board and chop into thin half rings or small squares. Pour the chopped onions into a clean plate.Step 2: prepare the carrots.
Using a vegetable cutter, peel the carrots and then rinse thoroughly under running warm water. Now place the vegetable on a cutting board and cut into thin slices. We move the crushed component into a free plate and proceed to preparing the meat.
Step 3: Prepare the beef.
Wash the beef thoroughly under running warm water, pat dry with kitchen paper towels and place on a cutting board. Using a knife, we clean the meat from veins, film and, if necessary, fat. Now cut the component into medium pieces and transfer to a clean small bowl.
Step 4: prepare the prunes.
We rinse the prunes well under running warm water and place them in a deep bowl. Attention: if the dried fruits are a little dry, then you can pour hot water over them and leave them aside for 5 minutes. After the allotted time has passed, carefully drain the liquid and allow the component to dry slightly.
Step 5: prepare the parsley.
Wash the parsley under running water, shake off excess liquid and place on a cutting board. Using a knife, finely chop the greens and pour them into a clean saucer. Attention: In fact, adding parsley to the dish is completely optional. After all, we prepare it in order to decorate the beef before serving it to the dinner table.
Step 6: prepare beef with prunes.
Pour into one pan 2–3 tablespoons vegetable oil and place on medium heat. When the contents in the container are well warmed up, add chopped onions and carrots. Stirring occasionally with a wooden spatula, simmer the vegetables. When the onion becomes transparent, pour the tomato paste into the pan. Once again, mix everything well with the available equipment and prepare the vegetable frying another 2–3 minutes. After the allotted time has passed, remove the container from the heat and set it aside.
In its place we put a second frying pan into which we pour the remaining vegetable oil. When it warms up well, add pieces of beef. Fry the meat until tender golden brown and immediately turn off the burner. Attention: Do not forget to stir the beef from time to time with a wooden spatula so that it does not burn on one side.
Now put the roasted vegetables, meat, and allspice peas into a large saucepan with a thick bottom, Bay leaf and a pinch of salt. Pour all the ingredients with cool boiled water so that the liquid lightly covers the pieces of beef, and place the container on medium heat. When the contents of the pan boil, reduce the heat to maximum and cook the dish for 1 hour under the lid. Important: From time to time it is necessary to check whether all the liquid from the cauldron has evaporated. If so, then you need to add a little more water.
After the allotted time has passed, place the prunes in a container, add ground black pepper and the remaining salt. Having mixed everything well again with the available equipment, we continue to simmer the dish for another 40 minutes. Then we turn off the burner and we can call everyone to the dinner table.
Step 7: Serve beef with prunes.
Using a ladle, place the finished beef with prunes into a deep plate and serve to the dinner table. Boiled potatoes, rice or buckwheat. If desired, the meat can be sprinkled with finely chopped parsley and treated to household members along with pieces of bread. Important: By the way, don’t forget to pour the remaining sauce in the pan over the side dish and beef. After all, it gives food an exquisite taste and unforgettable aroma.
Bon appetit everyone!
To avoid heartburn, it is best to add homemade tomato paste to the dish;
In addition to the spices indicated in the recipe, you can also add a pinch of ground coriander, a little “khmeli-suneli” or a mixture of Provençal herbs to the beef with prunes;
If desired, carrots can also be chopped on a coarse grater;
In order for us to get a tasty dish, the choice of quality meat is very important. First of all, we pay attention to the color of the beef. It should be red or bright pink and, most importantly, uniform. If you see areas where the meat is pale, this indicates that it has been frozen several times and vice versa. Therefore, most likely, the beef is no longer fresh. It is also very important that it is not weathered.
One of the simplest and at the same time the best ways cooking soft beef is stewing it with prunes. The meat turns out very tasty, tender, aromatic and even slightly sweet.
Cut the onion into half rings.
Cut the carrots into rectangular cubes.
Rinse prunes with cool water.
Fry carrots and onions in a frying pan, stirring with vegetable oil (10 minutes).
Add 2 tablespoons of tomato paste, stir and continue frying for another 5 minutes.
Fry the meat in another frying pan in vegetable oil, first over high heat for 10-15 minutes, then over medium heat.
Place the fried meat and vegetables in a saucepan. Add black peppercorns, bay leaf and dried basil.
Add 2-3 glasses of water and put the meat and vegetables in the broth on the fire. Cover halfway and cook for about 50 minutes after boiling over medium heat. Then add prunes and salt, cook for another 10 minutes.
Serve the finished beef stew with prunes as a separate dish or with simple side dishes: pasta, rice, buckwheat, etc.
Required Products:
- beef pulp – 500-600 gr.,
- prunes – 150 gr.,
- onion – 1 head,
- tomato paste – 1 tbsp.,
- vegetable oil – 3-4 tbsp.,
- water or broth – 250-400 ml.,
- salt, spices - to taste,
- Bay leaf,
- allspice peas.
Recipe with photos step by step:
1. Peel and rinse the onions. Cut into cubes and place in a heated frying pan with odorless vegetable oil. Fry the chopped onion until golden brown. 
2. Rinse the beef pulp well and cut into small pieces (about 2-3 cm). Combine with onion. Simmer over medium heat until the liquid has evaporated. 
3. Add tomato paste, bay leaf and allspice. Mix thoroughly and brown the pieces of meat slightly. 
4. Pour water or broth into the pan, covering the meat. Add a little salt. Simmer over low heat until the beef is tender (about 1 hour or more). 
5. Rinse the prunes and combine with the prepared meat. Mix well and simmer for another 15-20 minutes. Add a small amount more water if necessary. 
6. At the end, salt and pepper the beef with prunes to your taste. Cook for 5 minutes and remove from heat. 
7. Serve warm. The dish is perfect with boiled rice with spices and olive oil.
Bon appetit!
Beef stew with prunes always comes to the rescue when you need to quickly prepare something tasty for the main side dish. Of all the beef stew recipes, the one with prunes is the one I like the most.
Thanks to prunes, the meat has a spicy smoked aroma and at the same time acquires a sweetish taste. You can cook beef stew with prunes either in a frying pan or in the oven, microwave or slow cooker.
Today I prepared several recipes for beef with prunes, although this is only a small part of how you can quickly and tasty cook beef with prunes.
Beef stew with prunes, step by step recipe which is posted below will be cooked in a frying pan. Despite the simplicity of the recipe, it turns out incredibly tasty and tender.
Ingredients:
- Beef - 500 gr.,
- Prunes - 200 gr.,
- Onion - 1 pc.,
- Water – 0.5 cups,
- Carrots - 2 pcs.,
- Ketchup - 3 tbsp. spoons,
- Salt,
- Black pepper,
- Vegetable oil
Beef stew with prunes – recipe
The piece prepared for stewing must be washed and dried. Next, the meat should be cut into pieces 4 by 4 cm.
Vegetables for stewing beef will need onions and carrots. Grate the carrots and cut the onion into cubes.
Remove pits from prunes, if any. Cut it lengthwise into two parts.
Place the beef pieces in a hot frying pan with vegetable oil.
Fry the meat, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes.
After this, add onions and carrots to it.
Turn down the heat. To make the meat juicy, add half a glass of water. Simmer the meat with onions and vegetables for another 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Beef with prunes is perhaps one of the most successful combinations. Today we will prepare just that - stewed beef with prunes (I attach a recipe with photos and details to achieve a guaranteed result), and I will describe how proper culinary deglazing with wine works - a useful technology, a skill that will be useful to us in the future.
The meat does not dry out, it turns out very tender, juicy and soft, with a pronounced aroma of southern dried fruit. The recipe for stewed beef with prunes contains at the same time a slight sourness, the sweetness of plums, and a barely noticeable note of spicy cinnamon. Despite the fact that the dish is stewed for quite a long time, for 2 hours, you can rest assured that the taste will definitely meet all your expectations! It turns out exquisitely sweet: the beef is soaked during stewing with the taste of prunes, onions and all other additives.
How to choose the right meat for stewing with prunes?
Beef is ideal for stewing with prunes, although experiments are acceptable. For example, you can take equal amounts of lean pork and beef. When choosing meat, it is better to give preference to the pulp and take an even piece without excess fat. Beef or veal will do, it must be fresh, without prior freezing - this stews perfectly. The color of the beef should be red and uniform, the fibers should be tightly knit. If you find that the color of the meat is uneven, then it has most likely been frozen and thawed several times, which will have a very bad effect on the final taste.
Balance of flavors of the dish: some additives do not go well with stewed beef and prunes
You can diversify the taste of the dish by adding your favorite spices. It is important not to overdo it and try to maintain balance. No need to add bell pepper and carrots - they will greatly interrupt the taste of prunes. But tomato paste can be replaced with grated fresh tomatoes, previously blanched and peeled.
Ingredients
- beef 400 g
- prunes 200 g
- dry white wine 100 ml
- onions 1 pc.
- tomato paste 1 tbsp. l.
- tomato sauce 2 tbsp. l.
- salt 0.5 tsp.
- mixture of ground peppers 2 wood chips.
- ground cinnamon 2 chips.
- mixture of Italian herbs 0.5 tsp.
- vegetable oil 1.5 tbsp. l.
- water 200 ml
Recipe for beef stew with prunes
- Cut the meat into small pieces approximately 2x2 cm to speed up the cooking process.
Peel the onions and chop them into medium cubes. Wash the prunes thoroughly in cold water - lightly smoked or dried pitted prunes, preferably soft and large, will do.
Pour 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil into a well-heated frying pan and place the beef in it. Fry in small portions without a lid over high heat so that it immediately seizes on all sides and does not stew in its own juices. With such a quick frying, the beef will become golden brown in just 4-5 minutes, all the valuable meat juices will remain inside each piece. We do not add salt during the cooking process! If you salt meat when frying, it will become tough and dry, it will take a long time to stew and lose its juiciness.
Transfer the fried beef to a thick-walled saucepan or saucepan. Add salt and a mixture of Italian herbs (can be replaced with dried basil, parsley and oregano - 1 pinch each).
Deglaze the pan in which the meat was fried with wine. To do this, pour white table wine into it and let it simmer for 3-4 minutes so that the alcohol evaporates. The fried sediment at the bottom of the pan will give off its color and aroma to the liquid, which will make the dish even tastier. Pour the resulting liquid into a saucepan with meat.
Reheat the pan to fry the onions. Pour 0.5 tablespoon of vegetable oil into it and saute the onion, that is, bring it to softness.
As soon as the onion becomes transparent, add tomato paste and sauce (I used Krasnodar sauce, you can add ketchup or pureed tomatoes). Stir and simmer over low heat for 2-3 minutes.
The result should be a thick onion-tomato gravy.
Place the fried onions and tomatoes in a saucepan with the fried meat.
Add a little boiling water and simmer the beef over low heat under the lid for 1 hour. During this time, the meat should become quite soft.
If there is not enough liquid, you can add a little more boiling water, but there should not be too much water - no more than half the level of the meat. During stewing, the beef must be stirred from time to time so that the sauce does not burn.
When the beef becomes soft, add the washed, pitted prunes, mix and simmer for another 40 minutes. We continue to cook over low heat without a lid, remembering to stir.
At the very end of cooking, add a mixture of ground peppers and a couple of pinches of cinnamon, which will fit perfectly into the combination of beef and prunes - the dish will acquire a sweetish note and a delicious, barely noticeable and completely unobtrusive aroma of oriental spices. Remove the saucepan from the heat and let it brew under the lid for 15 minutes.
Stewed beef with prunes is equally tasty hot or cold. You can serve it as a separate dish, complemented with a glass. good wine. Rice and fresh vegetables are perfect as a side dish; you can add finely chopped herbs or limit yourself to a couple of sprigs of arugula or basil.
On a note
— The wine for deglazing can be replaced with beef broth or plain water.
— It is better to take refined olive or sunflower oil, without foreign odors.
— If the meat turns out to be tough during the stewing process, the cooking time needs to be increased - simmer until the fibers begin to separate freely when pricked with a fork. If there is not enough liquid, you can add a little boiling water.