One of the most popular dishes I made during this year’s Extra Life was the “Tavern Stew.” It was a slow cooked beef stew that could work for any tavern-themed game or event. D&D, WoW, Skyrim, they all have some sort of beef stew. I made it extra medieval/Tavern-y by serving the stew in bread bowls. (In medieval times, meals would be served on trenches of bread.) The dish was delicious, and the main bit of criticism came from there not being enough liquid to seep into the bread. I would recommend either serving it in a bowl with bread on the side, or adding a bit more beef broth in the final hour of the slow cooker so it has time to season but hopefully not be soaked up by all of the meat, potatoes, and vegetables.
The best part of this recipe? If you’re planning an all-day D&D session, you can get it started in the morning, play, and then take a nice break for dinner once it’s ready. Plus you’ll have the fantastic smell of stew cooking all day!
Tavern Stew
Ingredients:
- 2 pounds beef stew meat, cut into 1 inch cubes
- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1 onion, chopped
- 3 potatoes, diced
- 4 carrots, sliced
- 1 1/2 cups beef broth
- 1/4 cup red wine (optional)
Directions:
In a small bowl, mix together the flour, salt and pepper. Mix in the meat until it’s all evenly coated in the flour mixture.
Cook the meat in a pan with a tiny bit of olive oil until slightly browned. Place the meat into a slow cooker.
Stir in the rest of the ingredients.
Cover and cook on Low setting for 10 to 12 hours, or on High setting for 4 to 6 hours.
If you want to use bread bowls, get round loaves in the size you would like and carefully scoop out the middle with a knife to make a bowl shape. Fill the bowls with stew. (Pro tip: Place the bread bowl on a plate so you don’t have to worry about drips, spills, or yours guests wanting to eat parts of the bowl before it’s fully empty!)
Enjoy!
Have you made slow-cooked stews before? What’s your fave slow cooker recipe?
I usually don’t care for beef stew, but that looks delicious!
Any idea approximately how many people this would feed? I’m planning to make it regardless for my Nerd New Year’s party tomorrow. Thanks!
I want to say I made it for around 6 people? Let me know how many it fed for you!
Hi! Another Tara here, and this stew looks amazing. I plan to make it, tomorrow specifically. I was wondering, how large where your bread bowls? I plan to serve it in those, and once my shipment comes in, place those in the old woven wooden bowls because that seems to make perfect sense to me.
I’m serving a potential 10 people, so I will be doubling the recipe. We’ll see how much we have left over, if people don’t devour the entire pot.
Thanks for sharing it!
… I also have no idea how my stepfather’s photograph got latched onto my email address. If you could, please also tell me where this website is hosted, so I can remedy this situation?
Hello!
I used basic round loaves, probably around 6-8″ in diameter? They were pretty big!
Let me know how the stew works out for you!
I believe the comment system uses Gravatar: https://en.gravatar.com/
You should be able to change the image there!
Aaand the account is so old it can’t even be accessed anymore. Figures.
The stew turned out amazingly! Everyone loved it, and I actually ran out of it because I had to cut down to 1.5 times the recipe- I ran out of room in the pot!
I believe I will be making this recipe again, because everyone loved it so much. Thanks again for sharing it!