How do I make my beef stew tasty

[ouch321]

Tried making beef stew and dumplings in my slow cooker crockpot. But it comes out a bit bland.
Do you have suggestions to improve?

Currently...

• sliced carrot
• diced beef
• sliced onion
• dissolved stock cube/s

Left on slow for c8 hours and then I put the dumplings in for an hour or less at the end.

It just tastes a bit bland at the end.

What would make it better?

Pickled walnuts¿

We add ale into ours alongside a beef oxo cube and then some gravy granules at the end to thicken the sauce. Had it on monday evening actually - delicious!!

Worcester sauce, a little tomato puree, tiny bit of chili powder and, if you have wine, red wine. That should taste good. Otherwise it's just school dinnery.

Somebody mentioned oxtail soup - yes, lovely! Beer is good too, instead of wine, so is Guinness.

I was wondering about this - what do you normally do? You don't have to go all school-dinners/wartime-rationing-ish just because of Corona virus. Things are allowed to taste nice!

Teaspoon of garaam masaala or mixed spice, paprika, salt, pepper and Worcestershire sauce

Half a bottle of ale

Spoonful of marmite or bovril, and a healthy squirt of HP sauce

@AndNoneForGretchenWieners Where do you get your frozen silver skin onions from? A friend at work can't get them anymore....and now I want some for my stew!

Smoked paprika

Add come extra veg: leeks and a red pepper, will do wonders l
Also seasononing, black pepper, rosemary, a beef stock cube, garlic, Worcester sauce and splurge of tomato puree

Thanks to all for advice.

Made the beef stew this evening. In addition to my original ingredients...

• sliced carrot
• diced beef
• sliced onion
• dissolved stock cubes

... I added the following this time around.

• Bisto gravy granules
• celery
• peas
• thyme
• salt
• tomato puree
• Lea and Perrins
• bit of English mustard
• Marmite

It definitely looked a bit better/richer and bit more flavour. Still think I need to figure out something to get the liquid part tasting a bit more beefy...

For anyone who searches this up in the future with a similar issue thought it might help with the update.

Oh yeah and I cooked the beef and onions in some flour on the hob first before putting the pot in the slow cooker. And I also sprinkled in some dried garlic.

Cook it in the oven instead. Will be loads better.

OP I made this tonight. It was delicious! I've got a sear and cook slow cooker so browned the meat and veg in there rather than making more washing up. And didn't bother with deglazing. The only thing I would change is less potatoes as there seemed to be loads!

Oh and I only used 3 tbsp of flour.

Wine or beer, mixed herbs

Stock pot, lea and perrins, I add parsnips as well which gives sweetness. Tomato puree, garlic, mixed herbs and bistro best gravy granules at the end to thicken the liquid. Searing the meat actually makes no difference in my opinion!

I've made this twice recently and it's gorgeous so I reckon would work as just a stew as well. I do make stew as well, usually with wine, but this was really nice.

Bovril and paprika

For beef I usually brown beef, onions and peppers. Add a tin of chopped tomatoes, tomato puree, thyme (because I love thyme) salt, pepper and sugar and some beef stock.

OP if you are still reading, to my mind the best beef stew is a Provençal daube. So we’ll flavoured yet relatively simple.
www.ft.com/content/16a64f66-66de-11e2-a805-00144feab49a
I hope this links, but of not if you google daube and Financial Times they have a recipe which looks good to me, although I personally don’t add olives. Mireille Johnstone was a great food writer and if you can find her recipe it’s also very good, the dried orange peel is essential.

Flour and Brown the meat in small batches really well and set aside
Brown some diced carrot, onion and celery
Throw in 3 or 4 fat cloves of garlic (smashed and then skins removed)
Fry for another minute, then put in some tomato paste. Not too much, just a tablespoon for every 800g of meat.
Chuck in the browned meat, add 2 glasses of red wine, bay leaf, thyme, and 2 good stock cubes (I like the knorr stock pots). Add a bit of boiling water, bring it to a simmer, then switch to slow cook for 8 hrs on low. Make it extra special by removing the meat and either straining the gravy or blitzing it with the hand blender (remove the Bay leaves). Add a slurry of cornflour and simmer if you need to thicken it further.