My beef stew vegetables taste like red wine vinegar

Question

So apparently red wine and red wine vinegar for cooking are different and I didn’t know this. So for my beef stew I a cup of red wine vinegar instead of red wine (which I know nothing about wines either way) so now my vegetables taste terribly of vinegar. Is this fixable or should i toss it out? Please help

Answer 1

It is not possible to remove the vinegar taste. You can try augmenting it by sweetening the stew (using something more interesting than white sugar, as ChrisH points out in his answer) and adding warming spices, to move it in a sauerbraten direction. If this doesn’t appeal, throw it out.

Answer 2

I assume the vinegar accounts for a large proportion of the liquid you added. You mention one cup, but not how many servings or how much of everything else went in. A cup is a huge amount for two servings, far less if it's meant to serve a dozen, though it could still taste quite vinegary.

I'd start by removing as much liquid as possible, by straining the stew. Then replacing it with stock or water, perhaps with some grape or apple juice mixed in, and probably a little tomato puree/paste.

Sweetening as Sneftel suggests would be more interesting using treacle/molasses or honey than sugar - both are used in combination with vinegar to good effect.

But this is a lot of vinegar. If you don't manage to drain off enough you'll probably need to dilute it as well. That would mean adding more of everything else, plus perhaps potato or pearl barley if they weren't already present.