Beef Stew with Porcini Mushrooms and a Nebbiolo

Porcini mushrooms add a great depth of flavor to this long simmering Italian-style Beef Stew with Porcini Mushrooms recipe. The beef marinates for at least 6 hours, so start this recipe the night before you want to serve it, or early on the morning you plan to cook it. Read on for details, or click here to jump down to the recipe. The porcini beef stew was served with a Nebbiolo red wine. Click here to jump ahead to learn more about the wine. Disclosure: We received the wine as complimentary sample from the winery. As always, the opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

This Beef Stew with Porcini Mushrooms recipe has been in our publishing queue for quite some time! I made it on one of the first chilly nights of late fall. I came across the photos of it recently and was reminded I better get this posted before our minds and food turn totally toward spring!

The wine was the starting point for this Beef Stew with Porcini. I had a bottle of Nebbiolo from Demarie, in the Piedmont region of Italy. I was definitely thinking comfort food to go with this big red wine. Making my first beef stew of the season seemed like a good direction; but I wanted to tweak my stew recipe a bit to conjure up the flavor’s of Italy’s Piedmont region. I associate porcini mushrooms with the Piedmont, and find it pairs well with the regions red wines–see for instance this Porcini Mushroom Risotto that we paired with a Nebbiolo. Beef Stew with Porcini Mushrooms sounded like a promising recipe idea!

You will want to start on this beef stew recipe the night before you want to cook it, or early that morning, to allow the beef at least 6 hours to marinate. Yes, you do need to use an entire bottle of red wine for the marinade! I recommend using an entry level Nebbiolo, which you can find for $10 to $12. But you could substitute other dry red wine; stick with an Italian wine if you can!

After the marinade, the beef and vegetables get browned on the stove top before moving to the oven for some slow simmering to make nice tender and flavorful meat. A Dutch oven is pretty crucial for this task, leaving an Amazon affiliate link here to the one that we use.

The stew slowly simmers for 4 hours in the oven, before getting finished on the stove top, including adding those porcini mushrooms that give this beef stew some extra great flavor!

Wine Pairing: As I mentioned, we had a bottle of 2011 Demarie Roero Nebbiolo Riserva that inspired us to make this Beef Stew with Porcini Mushrooms. Nebbiolo is the red wine grape used in making Barolo. You can find some very good Nebbiolo produced in areas outside of the official Barolo designated areas. Roero is one of those areas that that produces some good Nebbiolo. Roero is in the heart of the Piedmont, halfway between Asti and Cuneo.

I got lilacs and warm stone on the nose of the wine, bringing to mind a summer afternoon. Taste of good berry fruit with a touch of vanilla. As I suspected, this Nebbiolo is an excellent Italian wine pairing for the beef stew recipe!

Beef Stew with Porcini Mushrooms

Beef Stew with Porcini Mushrooms slowly simmers in a Nebbiolo wine, yielding some delicious Italian comfort food.

• Author: Cooking Chat
• Prep Time: 30 mins
• Cook Time: 4 hours 30 mins
• Total Time: 5 hours
• Yield: 8 servings 1x
• Category: Main
• Cuisine: Italian

Scale 1x2x3x

Ingredients

• FOR THE MARINADE
• 1 bottle Nebbiolo or other dry red wine
• 8 sprigs of thyme
• 6 sage leaves
• 4 sprigs of rosemary
• 1 yellow onion, coarsely chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 5 bay leaves
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 2 crushed juniper berries
• grind of black pepper
• pinch fennel powder
• 2.5 lbs. stew beef, cut into 2 inch cubes
• FOR THE STEW
• 1 oz dried porcini mushrooms
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 2 onions, chopped
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 1 celery stalk, finely chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 cups reserved marinade
• 1 cup of liquid used to reconstitute the porcini
• 1 cup diced tomatoes
• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• ½ cup coarsely chopped parsley
• 6 olives, sliced
• 1 tbsp of lemon zest
• a few grinds of black pepper
• 1.5 tsp garlic powder

Instructions

1. Make the marinade: Combine all the marinade ingredients, from the bottle of wine through the fennel powder, in a large bowl. Place the beef in a large sealable plastic bag, then pour the marinade into the bag (having a helper is handy here). Gently shake the beef around a bit to get it well-coated, then squeeze the air out of the bag and seal it tightly. Store the beef in the refrigerator for at least 6 hours or overnight.
2. Reconstitute the dried porcini mushrooms 30 minutes prior to starting to cook the stew. Heat the water in a pan. When it starts to boil, remove from stove and pour over the dried porcini in a bowl that can withstand the hot water. Let the porcini soak in the water for at least 30 minutes.
3. Place a sieve over a bowl and line it with a wet paper towel. Pour the mushrooms into the sieve. Reserve the porcini soaking water. Rinse the mushrooms, then coarsely chop and set aside.
4. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees as you get ready to brown the meat and veggies
5. To start making the stew, place a strainer inside a large bowl. Pour the beef mixture into the strainer, using the bowl to capture and reserve the marinade. Remove the beef, patting it with paper towel to dry it a bit, and scrape off big pieces of herbs and spices from the marinade. Set the beef aside in a bowl.
6. Heat the oil on medium heat in a dutch oven. Add the finely chopped onion, carrot, and celery to the pan, cook for a few minutes until it starts to soften.
7. Add the garlic, cook for another minute. Next, stir in the beef, combining it well with the veggies. Salt to taste. Cook for 5 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally to brown on all sides.
8. After the beef has browned, stir in the reserved marinade, 1 cup of the porcini liquid, diced tomatoes and tomato paste. Bring the liquid to a boil, then reduce to simmer for about 5 minutes, allowing the liquid to reduce a bit.
9. Cover the dutch oven, and carefully move it into the preheated oven, and cook for 4 hours.
10. Carefully move the stew back on the stovetop after the 4 hours. Bring to a steady simmer, and add the garlic powder, chopped porcini mushrooms, salt and pepper to taste. Simmer partially covered for 30 minutes reduce and thicken the stew. At the end of this cooking time, stir in the parsley, olives and lemon zest. The last two items give a nice freshness to it. Alternatively, a bit of these last 3 items can be served on top of each person’s bowl of stew, for a nice presentation. We like to serve the stew over mashed potatoes, or you can serve with noodles or directly in a bowl. Enjoy with a glass of Nebbiolo or other Italian red wine!
11. NOTE: Though it is preferable to use the cooking temperature and heat given here, I have when short on time turned the heat up to 325 and reduced the cooking time in the oven by 30 to 60 minutes.

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Tools to use: Providing an Amazon affiliate link for the Lodge Dutch oven that we use. I would get a percentage of the sale if you choose to purchase using this link. As always, we only share about products we use and recommend based on our experience.