AIP braised beef and mushrooms - oven braise of seared stew meat in bone broth

Stew meat is the cut the butcher sets aside for whatever needs hours instead of minutes, and on a day your energy runs out early, that turns into a strange kind of mercy. Sear it in smaller loads so the pieces brown rather than steam, salt it, and shut the oven door. The oven takes the 3 hours you do not have to stand up for.

A cut braised this long is a real way to get zinc into a day, a mineral tied to keeping the immune response steady, and one the gut lining leans on when it is doing its own quiet repair work. Cremini mushrooms deepen the pot with their own quiet substance, and the bone broth threads both through the sauce, so nothing in the pot is just filler.

This is a cut of the animal that would otherwise end up in someone else's stock pot, so cooking it well, giving it the long, unhurried heat it actually needs, is its own small form of using the whole thing. Let the house smell like patience for an afternoon, then eat it slow enough to notice.

Ingredients

• 2 pounds stew meat, cut into 1-inch squares
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• Sea salt
• 1 onion, finely diced
• 1 stalk celery, finely diced
• 1 carrot, peeled and finely diced
• 2 bay leaves
• 4 garlic cloves, smashed
• 2 tablespoons arrowroot starch
• 16 oz cremini mushrooms, quartered
• 3 cups bone broth
• 3 sprigs fresh thyme

AIP note: Core AIP and elimination-compliant as written.

Method

Heat the oven to 325 F. Pat the beef dry and salt it well. Warm the olive oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat and sear the meat in batches, leaving room between the pieces so they brown rather than steam. Set the seared beef aside.

Lower the heat to medium. Add the onion, celery, and carrot to the same pot and cook for 5 to 6 minutes, until softened. Stir in the smashed garlic and the bay leaves and cook another minute.

Scatter the arrowroot over the vegetables and stir it through so it coats everything. Return the beef and any resting juices to the pot, add the mushrooms, then pour in the bone broth and tuck in the thyme sprigs. Bring it to a gentle simmer.

Cover the pot and move it to the oven. Braise for 2.5 to 3 hours, until the beef pulls apart easily with a fork and the sauce has thickened. Fish out the bay leaves and thyme stems. Taste and adjust the salt before serving.

Instant Pot variation

Use the saute setting to sear the beef and soften the vegetables, then stir in the garlic, bay, and arrowroot. Add the beef, mushrooms, broth, and thyme. Seal the lid and cook on high pressure for about 35 minutes, then let the pressure release naturally. If you want the sauce thicker, simmer it down on saute for a few minutes at the end.

*Adapted from autoimmunewellness.com*