So normally when I make a stew I start by sweating off a stick of celery, a carrot and an onion for twenty minutes of so. This is a bit of a pain because I end up having to buy a whole head of celery when I only want a little bit, and I feel a bit daft buying one carrot, and twenty minutes of sweating is a bit boring.
So I was wondering whether I could do a huge batch and then freeze it in bags. That way, whenever I want to make a stew, I can just brown my meat and the get a bag of my 'stew base' out of the freezer and just bung it in. No more wasted celery.
Will this work? Or will the freezing diminish the texture-flavour of the stew? I could test it but was wondering if anyone of here might tell me straight off its a stupid idea and explain why it won't work.
Furthermore, I normally cook out a glbutt of wine at the end of sweating, prior to adding the browned meat. If I was to freeze the base, should I do it before adding the wine or after?
Your time-saving tips on stew-making would be most appreciated.
