Bison Stew With Coffee and Dried Bolete Mushrooms

Bison Stew With Coffee and Dried Bolete Mushrooms_-2

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5 from 1 vote

A dark winter stew made with coffee and dried boletes.

Prep Time30

Cook Time1

Total Time1 30

Course: Main Course, Soup

Cuisine: American

Keyword: Bison, Coffee, Dried Mushrooms, Stew

Servings: Servings

Calories: 2854kcal

Author: Alan Bergo

Equipment

1 Dutch oven

Ingredients

2 lbs bison or beef chuck boneless shortrib, or stew meat
2 cups strong coffee
3 cups strong chicken stock preferably homemade
1 ounce dried porcini roughly 1.5 cups of dried mushrooms
1 cups shallot diced ¼ inch
All purpose flour as needed for dredging (optional)
Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
1 teaspoon dark unsweetened cocoa powder
Flavorless oil for browning the meat, as needed
Bouquet garni of 5 fresh thyme sprigs 10 black peppercorns, a few cloves of garlic, and 1 fresh bay leaf (tie this in cheesecloth before adding to the braise)
3 tablespoons unsalted butter for serving (optional)
Fresh horseradish grated on a microplane grater for serving (optional)

Instructions

Rehydrate the mushrooms in the stock for 30 minutes, then agitate to remove any grit, remove the mushrooms and chop roughly. Strain the stock through a fine chinois or mesh strainer and recombine the two.
Trim sinew and silver skin from the meat, then cut into 1 ounce pieces about the size of a quarter. Season the meat liberally with salt and pepper, then allow to sit for 15 minutes, or overnight if you have time, this helps the salt to penetrate the meat.
Heat ¼ cup of the oil at a time in a large rondeaux or brazier, then dredge the meat in flour, tap off the excess, and, working in small batches, brown the meat deeply, then remove the meat, add more oil if needed, and continue to brown the meat. If the bottom of the pan looks like it getting brown, deglaze with some stock or water, scrape off the brown bits and add to the reserved, browned meat, then add some more oil to the pan and continue browning the meat.
After the meat has been browned, sweat the shallot in a little oil until translucent in the same pan the meat was cooked, then add the meat, mushrooms/stock, coffee, cocoa and bouquet garni then cover the pan and simmer until the meat is tender, uncovered, stirring occasionally, about 1 hour. Transfer the stew to a container to cool, remove the bouquet, then label, date, and refrigerate until needed.
When re-heating the stew and preparing to serve, stir in the cold unsalted butter to thicken the sauce and give it a glossy sheen, adjust the seasoning for salt to taste if needed, then serve immediately, grating a little fresh horseradish over each serving.

Notes

This is scaled from a 20 lb restaurant batch I made, expect a little bit of variation, it's stew, not rocket science.

Know that I do add a little more liquid to my stews in the restaurant, since the typical downfall of braised meat dishes is my line cooks running low on the braising liquid during service.

You'll notice there are no vegetables in the stew, which means you really need to use high quality stock to cook it in, since there won't be any aromatic vegetables to flavor the sauce. I prefer to cook vegetables fresh alongside to preserve their texture and garnish the stew with them. In the pictures, the stew is served with spaetzle and some roasted heirloom carrots.

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