Meal 5 - Louis's famous Iatalian stew

Ok, i know i've been slacking but come on i have legit excuses; first my ghetto laptop is still broken, second i just ran out of ideas and there's no inspiration for me to cook(maybe i need to find a GF lol) , and last but not least i do not have killer camera (plus my photographer aka Louis has been bit busy w/ his GF jkjkjk) speaking of the devil, meal 5 is going to be dedicates to Louis, since it's his dish, I kind of steal it form his facebook photo album(FYI in the future, if you don't want reveal your secrets, don't put pics on facebook), anyways enough of this chitchat, let's cook!!!

Ingredients:

• Chuck Blade beef roast (w/ fat on it)
• whole onions
• glove garlic
• tomato (skin the tomato)
• 1 tbl spoon of tomato paste
• Fresh Italian Parsley
• touch of rosemary
• 2 bay leaf
• 1 tbl spoon of brown sugar
• 2 tea spoon of honey
• 2 cup of beef stock
• 1 cup of water
• 1 cup of cooking red wine ( merlot or cab if you wanna be fancy)
• 2 tbl spoon of red wine vinegar
• 3 -6 cracked black pepper
• pinch of salt and pepper
• 1/8 cup of cream or milk

Step1 - let's get this party started
cut the chuck beef roast into pcs, since it's a stew i recm'd bout 2inch of cube. or you can do however you like it, as long as it wont' be too big to bite, and season the beef with salt and pepper lightly.

cut the onions into pcs and mince the garlics, add EVOO into a pan and saute the onions/ garlics. once the onions turn into yellow add beef , and sugar.

step 2 - nice and slow

Once the beef turned brown add tomato, tomato paste and red wine vinegar, and make sure code the beef evenly with the goodies. Once the tomato looks cooked, add the red wine, beef stock and water to the pan, let it boil and set the fire between small to medium, close lid and leave it for 45 mins.

step 3. add all the herbs

Add all the herbs and honey and close the lid and let it cook slowly for another 1.5 hr, once the liquid become 1/3 add the cream to thicken the stew. n let it cook for another 20 mins. DONE!!!

After thought:since it's a stew dish so it's pretty amazing w/ rice (as you can tell i'm asian) but it is also really good just eat the stew w/ a good Baguette. Also you can add other stuffs in the stew for example: carrots, celery, potatoes, or asparagus(any things that is good for slow cooking). At the end, you are the chef, so creative and use you imagination!!!

image 1&2 from http://www.facebook.com/photos.php?id=600312170#/photo.php?pid=981612&id=600312170 louis haung

will upload more pics