For The Best Beef Stew, Throw In One Umami Canned Ingredient

There are plenty of ingredients that just seem to improve everything they meet. A spritz of citrus brightens up plenty of preparations. Bay leaves belong in every kitchen, whether you're among the legions who believe they're practically compulsory or not. And anchovies are the secret ingredient beloved by celebrity chefs like Bobby Flay and home cooks alike. The little tinned fish are tops for your next beef stew, too.

Lest you're reluctant to include any kind of seafood in your beef stew, understand that anchovies truly belong in plenty of otherwise unexpected places. A lot of the time you don't even know they're there since they're not meant to add a fishy taste to your dish. Instead, anchovies are basically umami itself, the savory taste that often tracks as salty or meaty to most palates. They make your dishes richer, deeper, and create a more full-bodied quality that just would not be as present in their absence. And hidden swimming around a tomato sauce or gravy, Caesar salad dressing, and beef stew, these petite proteins do a lot of heavy lifting.

The great news is that you don't have to learn a whole new stew recipe to start adding anchovies to the mix. But you should take some considerations into account for their presence. If your favorite beef stew already borders on too salty, for example, the addition of anchovies are your sign to reduce the typical amount of salt you use by about half. You can always shake a bit more in later, but you probably won't need to.

You also probably just don't want to toss in the whole tin of fish and see how it shakes out. Your anchovy-packed beef stew might turn out terrific, but there can be too much of a good thing. Two or three fish are a good start, and you can always reel in a few more next time. If you're new to anchovy-enhanced stew, you're probably also wondering by now whether you're going to see the fish flopping around in there, however tiny they may be. The anchovies will sort of melt when they're sauteed with something like a mirepoix's carrots, onion, and celery as their dainty composition breaks down, rendering them virtually invisible. You can always give them a quick chop if you want to move that pretty quick process along even faster, and marvel at the improvements to your beef stew's flavor that anchovies can bring, sight unseen, later on.