help! stew lovely, meat like shoe-leather, serving at 6pm...

[Mandyville]

What can I do? Anything? The stew tastes great but the meat is sooo tough!

Do you have a pressure cooker? Bung it in there for 10 mins if you can.
Failing that, just keep cooking it for as long as poss...

Good luck!

No pressure cooker. Might go on the Christmas list... This is the story of so many of my stews!

If you've used braising or stewing steak, you need to give it a good 3 hours in a preheated oven (Gas 1 or 2) for the fibres to break down. If you have trouble with stews not cooking it could be worth investing in an oven thermometer... make sure it's not running too cold. Also, another cause of tough/dry results can be if there's not enough fat in the meat to start with. Some steak sold for stewing can be really lean when what you're looking for is a good 'marbling' of fatty tissue throughout the pieces.

Cogito, I think the fat is my problem. I buy cheap 'on offer' lean stewing steak and I never learn! It's always OKish in a slow cooker, but I never get it right when I do it on hob/in oven.

Just keep it on low for ages. It WILL tenderise and be lovely, I'm sure. Mine allways come out nicely if I cook them for hours.