Instant Pot experiments: Beef Stew, take 3

With the weather cooling down again, it struck me, mid-grocery-trip, that some beef stew would be a fine idea, and proceeded to get all the necessary ingredients while I was there to give the ol' Instant Pot another whirl.  As if... as inevitably happens with on-the-fly shopping decisions like that, I forgot a few things entirely.  Most importantly, I forgot the beer!

Well, I wasn't looking to head out again, so improvisation was the name of the game.  Surprisingly, it actually came out better than I had any cause to hope... enough so, that this (with a bit of tweaking) is likely the "base" from which I'll make any further experiments.

Preparation

• Dissolve 1 beef bouillon cube in 1c. of water (mug and a Keurig works well for this)
• Re-hydrate about 2c. of dried mushrooms, and reserve 1c. of the resulting liquid
• Peel and quarter about 1lb. of potatoes
• Skin and cut an onion into wedges (8 worked fine for me)

Procedure

• Heat Instant Pot on Saute setting
• Add 3T. butter, allow to melt
• Add onion wedges, knock them about a bit with a wooden spoon while they soften to let the layers separate.  Once the onion has started to soften
• Add 1lb. cubed stew meat, brown on all sides.
• Add 3T flour and stir to absorb the liquid fats in the pot
• Add the reserved "mushroom water", use to de glaze the bottom of the pot
• Add the following ingredients and stir to complete the sauce/soup/whatever:
• Prepared beef bouillon
• 1c. off-dry mead (just because I don't have beer, doesn't mean I don't have anything useful lying around!)
• 1t. thyme
• 1t. garlic salt
• 1T. Worcestershire sauce
• 1T. steak sauce
• Add the mushrooms, potatoes, and a 1lb. bag of baby carrots to the pot, and stir to combine
• Top off with some fresh-ground pepper
• Cancel out of Saute mode, close/lock the lid, and hit the Meat/Stew button.  In my case, it was done cooking about 40 minutes after that.

And the results... good flavor overall, good mouth feel for the soup, and everything cooked through nicely.  Well... in truth, the carrots, for all they were fork-tender, still tasted a bit underdone, and the mushrooms, while tasty, were still a bit chewy.  I don't think the right answer is to wait for a natural release on the pot per se (that would just make mush of the potatoes), but it might be worth waiting for 5-10 minutes before doing the quick release next time, just to see what difference that makes.  Oh, and of course, if I do have beer handy, probably best to use that to replace the mead and at least some of the mushroom water, especially if I have fresh mushrooms handy to work with as well.