expatgirl
Master Chef
for personal tastes I like to dredge my meat in seasoned flour first (I use a baggie for this to eliminate the cleaning__ and then immediately brown it in olive or canola oil......if my stew needs further thickening then I add more later but usually I don't have to...one thing that really looks nice in any stew or beef stroganoff is the addition of a browning sauce which I do at the very end and it gives the stew look a nice rich brown color (I use in in stir-fry as well)....the sauce comes in a small brown bottle with a yellow label (mine does) and is labeled Kitchen Bouquet browning sauce.......it's the perfect end-all accent.........