Pressure Cooker Beef Stew — The Sunday After the Bonfire

Vanderbilt freshman welcome week. The dorm is move-in chaos for the first three days — freshmen and parents and U-Haul trucks and tear-soaked goodbyes in the parking lot — and then orientation week proper begins Monday with a packed schedule of meetings, building tours, library introductions, advising sessions, and the first round of social events designed to mix incoming students who don’t yet know each other. Mama drove home Saturday afternoon after helping me unpack the truck and set up the dorm room with my roommate Priya from Houston (the same Priya I’d roomed with at orientation in July, who’d been assigned as my actual roommate after we’d both requested each other on the housing form). Mama’s departure was harder than I’d planned for. I cried for thirty minutes after the truck pulled out of the lot, sitting on the floor of the room with Priya patting my shoulder.

Saturday night the College of Arts and Science hosted a freshman bonfire at a private property thirty minutes outside Nashville — charter buses from campus, two hundred freshmen invited, a giant fire pit in a clearing, three food trucks (a barbecue truck, a vegan truck, and a beignet truck because Vanderbilt has Tulane-adjacent ambitions), a sound system playing nineties hip-hop and indie folk, picnic tables and folding chairs scattered around the fire. I went with the eight other students from my freshman writing seminar because Dr. Choi had specifically emailed all of us Tuesday encouraging us to attend together as a way of meeting each other before our first seminar Monday morning. The seminar is small and intense and the eight of us are going to be a tight cohort for fifteen weeks; meeting at a bonfire in a relaxed setting was meant to take the edge off our first classroom encounter.

I met Dustin at the bonfire around nine PM. He’s in the freshman writing seminar with me — one of the eight — and he’s from Memphis, attending Vanderbilt on a partial scholarship plus federal aid, planning to major in English with a minor in music performance. He plays guitar (acoustic, classical-trained, also indie-rock self-trained). He had read three of the four Welty short stories on Dr. Choi’s pre-semester reading list and he liked the same ones I did. We sat on a log by the fire for two hours and talked about Welty’s “A Worn Path” and about how Memphis and Tulsa are sister cities in spirit even though they’re a state apart — both river-adjacent, both home to specific Black and Southern white populations layered together in a particular musical tradition, both small enough to feel like home and big enough to have a real downtown. The conversation didn’t feel like a freshman get-to-know-you conversation. It felt like a conversation between two people who had already known each other for a long time.

The bonfire ended at midnight. The buses lined up to take us back to campus. Dustin walked me back to the dorm bus. We didn’t hold hands. He asked for my dorm number and I gave it to him. He said, “See you Monday in seminar.” I said yes.

Sunday I made pressure-cooker beef stew in my dorm-floor shared kitchen on the second floor of Highland Hall with the new Instant Pot Mama had insisted I take from home. The dorm kitchen is a galley with two electric ranges, a microwave, a giant communal fridge, and counter space for about three students at once. Sundays are quiet in the dorm because most freshmen go out for brunch with their parents who are still in town. I had the kitchen to myself from one PM until five.

The recipe: two pounds of chuck roast cut into one-inch cubes, salted heavily, browned in batches in olive oil on the sauté function until deeply colored. Out to a plate. One yellow onion diced, four cloves of garlic minced, two carrots diced, two celery stalks diced, sweated in the meat fat for ten minutes. Two tablespoons of tomato paste toasted in the fat for one minute. Two cups of beef broth, one cup of dry red wine, a tablespoon of Worcestershire, two bay leaves, fresh thyme, salt, pepper. The browned beef back in. Six small Yukon Gold potatoes halved. Lid on, sealing valve sealed, high pressure for forty-five minutes, ten-minute natural release.

The stew came out fork-tender, the potatoes intact, the broth rich and glossy. Six dorm-mates from my floor wandered in during the cook smelling the smell, and I ladled them small bowls as they came in. Dustin came up from his hall on the third floor at five-thirty PM having heard from one of his floor-mates that there was beef stew on the second-floor kitchen, and he ate two bowls standing at the counter. He asked, very directly, if he could come to next Sunday’s dinner. I said yes. The seminar starts tomorrow morning at nine.

Forty-five minutes high pressure, ten-minute natural release. Brown the beef in batches first. Here’s the dorm-kitchen build.

Pressure Cooker Beef Stew

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 35 minutes | Total Time: 55 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 2 lbs beef stew meat, cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 medium yellow onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 cup beef broth
• 1/2 cup dry red wine (or additional beef broth)
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 bay leaf
• 3 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, cut into 1-inch chunks
• 3 medium carrots, sliced into 1/2-inch rounds
• 2 stalks celery, sliced
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 2 tablespoons cold water
• Fresh parsley, chopped, for garnish

Instructions

1. Season and sear. Pat beef cubes dry with paper towels and season with salt and pepper. Set pressure cooker to sauté mode (or use a skillet over medium-high heat). Add oil and sear beef in batches, 2—3 minutes per side, until browned. Do not crowd the pan. Transfer to a plate.
2. Build the base. Add onion to the pot and cook 3 minutes, stirring, until softened. Add garlic and tomato paste and cook 1 minute more, until fragrant.
3. Deglaze. Pour in the red wine and scrape up any browned bits from the bottom of the pot — those bits are flavor. Let it bubble for 1 minute.
4. Add liquids and aromatics. Return beef to the pot. Add broth, Worcestershire sauce, thyme, and bay leaf. Stir to combine.
5. Pressure cook. Secure the lid and set to high pressure for 20 minutes. Allow pressure to release naturally for 10 minutes, then carefully quick-release any remaining pressure.
6. Add vegetables. Remove lid. Add potatoes, carrots, and celery. Secure lid again and cook on high pressure for 8 minutes. Quick-release pressure.
7. Thicken. Remove bay leaf. In a small bowl, whisk together cornstarch and cold water until smooth. Switch to sauté mode and stir in the cornstarch slurry. Cook 2—3 minutes, stirring, until stew thickens to your liking.
8. Taste and serve. Adjust salt and pepper as needed. Ladle into bowls and top with fresh parsley. Serve with crusty bread or biscuits.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 380 | Protein: 34g | Fat: 14g | Carbs: 28g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 520mg