Slow Cooker Beef Stew with Herby Dumplings

I was shocked to realise, a few days ago, that it was (very) early Spring and I had yet to make a beef stew with dumplings in the slow cooker!  Just goes to show what a relatively mild (albeit horrendously wet) winter we've had.

Now I absolutely adore beef stew - and a beef stew made in the slow cooker (the right way) is right up there amongst my favourites.

I can hear you all asking what I might consider to be "the right way"?  Well, those of you who have been reading along all these years (well done, if that's you - and thank you!) will recall my saying that I went through a phase of getting lackadaisical with the slow cooker and expecting miracles from it - and not getting them.  You see, to successfully cook in a slow cooker is all about what you put into it - and I'm not just talking the quality of your ingredients (although that does feature, but in a rather smaller way than with other situations).  No, what I'm talking about here is your preparation.  Meat has to be seared, or at the very least browned for additional flavour before being added.  Onions need to be sweated at the least and caramelised at the most, all for additional flavour.  The size of the pieces of meat and/or vegetable that you include, makes a huge difference to the flavour of the end product.

I began to think that you could throw a quartered onion in the slow cooker with a sliced carrot and some chunks of beef and expect a stew at the end of it.  Well, I dare say what I got had definitely been stewed - but was it "a stew?".  No, very definitely not.  No flavour, just hot and wet.  Bleugh.

Whatever you are cooking in the slow cooker - pretty much without exception, savoury wise - needs to have the meat seared or browned.  The difference in flavour for such a simple action, is incredible.  I opted to use beef shin for this stew as I knew the slow cooker would be on for best part of the day (we were visiting my parents so would be out for the day) and such long slow cooking is just perfect for beef shin.  Plus, it is one of the least expensive of all the beef cuts.  We managed to pick up around 500g for £5 - which is perfect.  Yes, shin requires a fair amount of trimming - especially when you've got menfolk who are as sensitive about finding "globby bits" in their stews as mine are - but it is so worth it.  Plus dustbins 1, 2 and 3 (the dogs) are always happy to take care of the trimmings.

Below, I talk about "big" and "small" pieces of vegetables and their role in the creation of the stew.  The same applies to the meat.  Pieces of beef that are relatively lean are kept for the "big" pieces - slightly smaller than 1" square - whereas any pieces that are shot through with impossible to remove sinew and/or fat, are chopped into tiny pieces to dissolve into the gravy.  Nothing gets wasted - it all adds to the glorious flavour.

So having said that, whenever I'm including vegetables, I sort them out into the said "big pieces" and "small pieces" - some of which, like carrot, celery, onion, potato and mushroom, will qualify under both categories.  The "big pieces" go into the slow cooker straight away, without any further preparation than peeling and cutting to size.  However, the "small pieces" vegetables get chopped finely with a view to their disintegrating as they cook (which you definitely don't want the big pieces to do!) and adding their individual gorgeousness to the whole that is the gravy.  Not only that, but the "small pieces" get pan fried - most especially the onions - before being added.  Raw onion added to a stew continues to taste like raw onion.  Even when adding whole shallots, I still pan fry them to get some colour on the outside - which lends flavour to the sauce or gravy and prevents them from tasting too "raw" at the end of it.

In the case of this stew, the "small pieces" I included were onion, garlic, carrot, celery, mushroom and potato.  Everything excepting the potato was there to add to the gravy, the potato was there to add to the thickening.

The "big pieces" included potato, carrot, mushroom, turnip, parsnip and butternut squash.

I also added a whole plethora of other flavours, all of which were there to bump up the gravy from just "gravy" to "WHOA! Awesome gravy!".  I started off with a Knorr Rich Beef Stockpot - just invaluable for dishes like this - then included some horseradish sauce, wholegrain mustard, Bovril, Essential Cuisine's veal stock, tomato ketchup, Worcestershire sauce and to thicken the gravy just before serving, some of Bisto's "Rich and Roasted" Best beef gravy granules.  Oh - and a good pinch or more of freshly ground black pepper.  Now, because of ingredients like the stockpot, the horseradish, mustard, Bovril, Worcestershire sauce and gravy granules, the requirement to be super-careful about using salt is paramount.  In fact, I resisted adding any additional salt - and just left it to all those ingredients to do my salt seasoning for me, which turned out very successfully.

 
As for herbs - can't leave out the herbs! - I used a couple of tablespoonfuls of finely chopped fresh parsley with the stalks included and a couple of bay leaves.

Yes, I threw pretty much everything except the kitchen sink at the stew - and it was fabulous.  The slow cooker went on at 9.30am and we came back late in the afternoon to a house filled with the gorgeous smells of stew cooking and with next to no preparation required other than to mix up the dumplings and warm a few bowls.

So, hopefully, you will see that using a slow cooker - or crockpot - is one of life's Very Good Things, however you can't expect it to do your flavour creation for you.  You get out of it what you put into it.

Now, where the dumplings are concerned, I decided to make them herby as the stew only had two herbs in it.  A chicken stew tends to have more in the way of herbs, so I like a plainer flavoured dumpling in that instance.  With a beef stew, the world is your oyster where flavouring your dumplings is concerned.  Pretty much anything goes - horseradish, cheddar, herbs, chillies - get creative!  I went for oregano, thyme and parsley and they were gorgeous.  The recipe is simple - just 100g of self raising flour, 50g of suet (veggie suet is fine), a pinch of salt and whatever flavours you're using.  Add 4-5 tbsp of water in stages and mix together to form a soft, but not sticky, dough.  Divide into six evenly sized spoonfuls and either roll into balls or simply drop into the gravy with an hour to go, for more freeform shapes.

I haven't written out a stew recipe here, because other than beef, the remainder of the ingredients are entirely up to you.  Just remember the "big pieces/small pieces" rule, the pan frying advice and remember that if you use any tender vegetables like cabbage, peas or cauliflower, to add them half way through the cooking period or they'll just disappear to mush.

Try not to drown your stew in gravy to begin with, as the veggies will give off a lot of liquid.  You can always add more water or stock as you go through the cooking period, which is a lot more satisfactory than winding up with a gallon of gravy!

Now if you've not got a slow cooker, by all means assemble the stew in a large casserole dish and cook it in the bottom of a low oven - but make sure you leave it there for a long old time.  My slow cooker version was cooking for around 9 hours - just to give you an idea of how long we're talking about.  I should think a minimum of 6 hours at 120/140degC would do the trick.  Oh - and don't forget the dumplings.  This stew needs dumplings.

Be aware, you've not got very long until the full loveliness of Spring is upon us - and barring more eccentric weather (please, no!), your window of stew opportunity is shrinking.  So don't delay - your slow cooker (not to mention your belly) needs this beef stew!

British Pie Week : Steak & Kidney Pie

When I knew that British Pie Week was trotting up towards us, it didn't take me long to decide which pie to make.

After all, I'd already devised a recipe for Steak & Kidney Pie but hadn't cooked it as of yet - well, not for the blog.  In fact, I still haven't cooked that precise pie because I got waylaid by the idea of the suet pastry that was involved with the Jamie Oliver Kate & Wills Wedding Pie.

This pie, I started cooking on the Saturday lunchtime, prior to when we were due to eat it on the Sunday evening.  I cooked the beef shin in the slow cooker, you see.  Being beef shin, it takes a lot of slow cooking to bring the meat to the point of being tender enough for our old teeth to cope with.  I'm afraid my days of wanting to gnaw my way through tough beef are long gone.  I just can't see why I should have to, when I've got a slow cooker!  I was hoping that - as with a lot of things - if I cooked the beef the day before, it would have had time to let the flavours develop before using it in the pie.

The other great thing about beef shin is that it contains a large amount of connective tissue - the greater part of which I trim off before cooking, but what is left slowly dissolves over the cooking process and renders the gravy so glossy and rich.  You just don't get that with the more expensive cuts of beef.

Mind you, I say "more expensive" cuts, but our (just under) 1kg of beef shin cost just short of £6!  I can remember - not so long ago, either -  it would have cost just under £5.  Just that relatively small rise of a pound is making me think whether we can afford to use it in future.  It may be more economical to buy 800g of beef brisket (which is slightly more expensive) but not have to trim so much away.


One mistake I made with this pie is to forget to soak the kidneys in milk before including them in the pot.  I have done this in the past and can confirm that it isn't an old wife's tale, but it does leave the kidneys with a gentler flavour.  For all that these were lamb's kidneys, they were mighty powerful - so powerful, in fact, that they were a bit too strong for hubby's taste.  If I'm honest, I'll admit that I liked them - in fact they were the best bit of the pie, for me!


Son & heir absolutely loves the pastry - so much so that I was begged to make something with the offcuts of the raw pastry, that he could take to school to eat in his break times!

Looks good!

I pan fried the kidney until just rare, before adding it to the meat mixture and baking.  However, hubby found this pie disappointing, because the pieces of kidney were too large for his palate and the gravy didn't taste particularly of kidney.  He prefers a more overall flavour of kidney, whereas I prefer to trip over a flavour shot of kidney by finding a larger piece in amongst the steak.  He was also disappointed that the can of Mackeson's that I'd used to slow cook the shin - he said - had disappeared.  So far as I was concerned, I could still taste it but that was largely because I'd been tasting the beef mixture all the way along - and I knew how it tasted before the Mackeson's was added!  It wasn't one of the prime flavours, but then it wasn't supposed to be.  This was, after all, a Steak & Kidney pie rather than a Steak & Ale pie.

Still, I enjoyed the pie very much - as did son & heir.  If I was to make another, I would ensure that the kidneys were cut into smaller pieces and perhaps some kidney was cooked with the beef, to ensure the gravy carried the kidney flavour along with everything else.  The pastry?  Well, I wouldn't change a thing.



STEAK & KIDNEY PIE (slow cooker version)     Feeds 4

Ingredients :

1 tbsp olive oil
a knob of butter
1 onion, halved then each half cut into sixths
a sprig of fresh rosemary, leaves removed and finely chopped
fresh thyme, leaves removed, to make approx 1 tsp
700g beef shin, trimmed and diced (start with 800g untrimmed)
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp tomato puree
200ml gentle smooth stout
1 heaped tbsp plain flour
500ml beef stock
1 tsp English mustard

1 tbsp Mushroom ketchup (or Worcestershire sauce), to taste

4 lamb's kidneys, cored and diced small.

For the pastry :

150g plain flour

50g Atora shredded suet (I use vegetable suet)

50g butter

sea salt

an egg yolk, for brushing.

Method :

1.  On day one, in a frying pan on a medium heat, place the olive oil and butter.  Add the onions and fry until they are just beginning to colour and have softened.  Add them to the slow cooker, switch it on to low and replace the lid.

2.  Increase the heat to high and add the diced beef, frying without stirring until browned and the cubes have caramelised on at least two sides - but don't let them burn!  Add the chopped herbs and the meat from one of the kidneys.  Cook until the kidney has browned, then add the lot to the slow cooker and replace the lid.

3.  To the frying pan, add the flour and tomato puree and stir until the flour has lightly toasted.  Then add the stout and stir, then gradually add the stock, stirring in between each addition to break down any lumps that might have appeared.  Add the mustard and the mushroom ketchup. The object of the exercise is to have a smooth thickened gravy by the end of it.  Pour into the slow cooker and give everything a good stir to settle it into one even layer.  Replace the lid and leave it to chuckle for a minimum of 4 hours.

4.  Cool and place in the refrigerator until the following day.

5.  On day two, make the pastry by putting the flour, suet and butter into a bowl with a good pinch of salt.  Using your thumbs and forefingers, rub the butter in to the flour until you have something resembling a crumb mixture.  Stir in 60ml of cold water (or thereabouts) and use your hands to pat and push the mix together to form a rough dough.  Ignore the urge to mix or knead, as you don't want to overwork the flour and have your pastry become tough.  Wrap the pastry in cling film and refrigerate for 30 minutes or until needed.

6. Pre-heat your oven to 180deg C/350deg F/gas 4.  Get the frying pan back out and add a little olive oil, over a medium heat.  Add the remainder of the kidney and fry until browned but still rare.  Decant into a deep pie dish.

7.  Spoon the meat mixture into the frying pan, leaving the gravy in the bowl, and heat it through.  Decant into the deep pie dish and give a stir, to distribute the kidney well.

8.  Add the gravy to the frying pan and simmer to reduce.  You're looking for a good thickish consistency that will coat the back of a spoon.  Once you have that, decant into the pie dish.

9.  Roll out the pastry to fit the top of the dish.  Run a little beaten egg around the edge of the dish and place the pastry over.  Trim to fit and cut a little hole in the top, to let the steam out.

10.  Brush beaten egg over the top of the pie and place in the oven to cook for around 45 minutes or until the pastry is golden and looking lovely.

11.  Serve.

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Jamie Oliver's "Kate & Wills' Wedding Pie" - using a slow cooker

Those of you who are in the U.K. can't have missed the fact that Jamie Oliver has a new t.v. programme out at the moment.  Named "Jamie's Great Britain", its premise is that Jamie is seen travelling around the country in a mobile pub (named "The Cock in Cider") talking to food producers and local people about what makes their area great for food, then goes away and produces a dish based on what he's been talking about.

It's a fairly tried and tested, if not somewhat predictable, premise for a cooking show.  Personally, I can't see the point in his travelling in the cumbersome Pub on Wheels (which started off life as an Army lorry) as he is rarely seen doing anything much in it.  Which supports the idea of it being a pub, but he could so easily have just found somewhere else to talk to people, had he have been of a mind to.  Anyway, I digress.

Vote for me!

I noted the fact that the programme had a Facebook presence and, during an idle moment, went along to see the page.  My interest became more focused when I saw that they had what they refer to as a "Snap and Share" thing going on.  Whereby, you cook one of the recipes from the show, take a photograph and upload it to the Facebook page.  (If you go there, give my pie a vote, won't you?).  Now even though I've never been one to photograph my food (removes tongue from cheek), this caught my interest long enough for me to think "ah, but there's rarely any of Jamie's recipes that I can afford to cook", which is sad, but true.  Occasionally, I'll find a recipe that can be downgraded from the stated expensive ingredients to more affordable ones that will do the job almost as well, but it is rare.  However, I thought I'd investigate what the recipe list was, just in case.

There were a number of recipes that just didn't suit for one or other reason, such as Leigh-on-Sea sole (too expensive), 12 hour rabbit ragu (no rabbits available where I live), sizzling lamb lollipops (too expensive), baby Yorkshire puds with trout pate (trout? Too expensive) or Guinness lamb shanks (again, too expensive).  Then, my eye lit upon the Kate & Wills' Wedding Pie, which involved my favourite Beef Shin and rather than spend 2 hours or so cooking it in the oven (which is the more expensive route), I thought I could use the slow cooker to advantage.

Now, apart from having to scale the recipe down to one feeding 4 people, the recipe involved ingredients that were largely already in the larder or fridge and those that weren't - being the beef and the stout - were relatively easily obtained and, more to the point, were affordable.  Now that's my kind of recipe.

The end result is absolutely 100% well worth the effort of producing this pie.  Also, if you make use of a slow cooker, it becomes even easier to produce.

I did the initial preparation in a frying pan - cooking the onions, then browning the meat, then creating the gravy.   Everything went into the slow cooker and it chuckled away on medium until around 4.30pm (about 6hrs).  I had made the pastry in the morning and put that in the fridge to chill, so the assembly of the pie involved adding some English mustard, Worcestershire Sauce and the cheese to the slow cooker's contents (I left the pearl barley out, as my chaps can't abide the stuff), then ladling it into the pie dish, topping with the pastry and bingo - baking.

Upon taking their first forkful of pie contents, everyone did that thing which denotes a great recipe from a good recipe - they chew whilst concentrating with furrowed brow, then the brow clears, they smile, then nod repeatedly whilst the face takes on a look of "OMG - I've never tasted anything so good!".  I thought it would be good - but not quite THAT good!

Such a tidy, well behaved pie!

The filling is just so rich and unctuous, with tender pieces of flavoursome beef that fall apart on your tongue.  All covered in a glorious thick gravy that is the envy of all who have attempted to create a good pie gravy in the past, and failed.  I included a few quartered mushrooms, which were delicious little punctuations in the texture of the pie and lent it additional interest.

I reckon that this pie, cooked with some lovely lamb's kidneys, would make a show-stopping steak & kidney pie.  So on that note, I'll be giving it a go sometime soon!

KATE & WILLS' WEDDING PIE adapted from Jamie Oliver's "Jamie's Great Britain".  Serves 4.

Ingredients :

1 tbsp olive oil
a knob of butter
a sprig of fresh rosemary, leaves picked and chopped
a sprig of fresh thyme, leaves picked and chopped (or half a tsp dried)
a bay leaf
2 medium red onions, peeled and roughly sliced
4-5 chestnut mushrooms, cleaned and quartered
600g beef shin, trimmed and diced (start with 700g untrimmed)
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp tomato puree
200ml local smooth stout
1 heaped tbsp plain flour
500ml beef stock

1½ tsp English mustard

1-2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce, to taste

50g good Cheddar cheese, grated.

For the pastry :

150g plain flour

50g Atora shredded suet (I use vegetable suet)

50g butter

sea salt

an egg, beaten.

Method :

1.  In a frying pan, place the olive oil, butter and herbs to melt the butter on a high heat.  Add the onions and fry until they are just beginning to colour and have softened.  Add them to the slow cooker with the mushrooms, switch it on to medium and replace the lid.

2.  Add the diced beef and continue to fry on a high heat, until all sides are browned and the cubes have caramelised on at least two sides - but don't let them burn!  Add to the slow cooker and replace the lid.

3.  To the frying pan, add the flour and tomato puree and stir until the flour has lightly toasted.  Then add the stout and stir, then gradually add the stock, stirring in between each addition to break down any lumps that might have appeared.  The object of the exercise is to have a smooth thickened gravy by the end of it.  Pour into the slow cooker and give everything a good stir to settle it into one even layer.  Replace the lid and leave it to chuckle for a minimum of 4 hours.

4.  In the meantime, make the pastry by putting the flour, suet and butter into a bowl with a good pinch of salt.  Using your thumbs and forefingers, rub the butter in to the flour until you have something somewhere between breadcrumbs and cornflake shapes being made between your fingers.  Stir in 60ml of cold water (or thereabouts) and use your hands to pat and push the mix together to form a rough dough.  Ignore the urge to mix or knead, as you don't want to overwork the flour and have your pastry become tough.  Wrap the pastry in cling film and refrigerate until needed.

5.  When you're ready to begin assembling the pie, pre-heat your oven to 180deg C/350deg F/gas 4.

6.  Remove the lid of the slow cooker and give everything a stir.  Then add the English mustard, the Worcester sauce and the grated cheddar cheese.  Give it all a gentle stir to encourage the cheese to melt.

7.  Once melted, ladle the contents of the slow cooker into your pie dish.  Roll out the pastry to fit the top of the dish.  Run a little beaten egg around the edge of the dish and place the pastry over.  Trim to fit and cut a little hole in the top, to let the steam out.

8.  Brush beaten egg over the top of the pie and place in the oven to cook for around 45 minutes or until the pastry is golden and looking lovely.

9.  Serve.

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Beef Bourguignon

Way back two Sundays ago, I decided to have Beef Bourgignon for dinner on Saturday evening.

I'd been holding a recipe for Bourguignon for the longest time, waiting until the stars converged - or alternatively, I had everything necessary in one place.  Well, it so happened that (thanks to my Wine ice cubes) I had everything necessary, barring the beef.

Well that was easily fixed by a quick trip to the butcher for some Beef Shin.

Imagine my surprise when I saw, on the t.v., the latest M&S advert which was extolling the virtues of their Beef Bourguignon - made with "prime cuts of beef"!  Having just made the dish with what (don't tell it, for goodness sake) could easily be described as "a very non-prime cut of beef", yet have the dish turn out so completely deliciously, made me a little scathing of their prime cuts.

Yes, beef shin does require a little knife work to remove the worst of the fat and gristle, but there really isn't all that much.  Just ask Jonty & Basil - they would rather it contained much more fat and gristle, as they get to be the wagging dustbins into which it goes!  It's just a shameless marketing ploy on their behalf, I reckon.

I put our Bourguignon into the oven for around two and a half hours, which had the pieces breaking up under knife and fork and requiring the minimum of chewing.  Now if that's not scrumptious, I don't know what is.

Oh - and I expect it cost around the same, but for very much more.  *smile*

BEEF BOURGUIGNON  (feeds 3 hungry people)

Ingredients :

1 tsp olive oil
15g butter
700g diced beef shin
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, grated
200g chestnut mushrooms
5-6 whole round shallots, peeled
225ml red wine
2 tbsp tomato puree
1 tsp dried thyme (or 2 sprigs, if fresh)
500ml beef stock.

Method :

1.  Pre-heat the oven to 180deg.

2.  Heat the oil in a large frying pan and brown the beef, seasoning it as you go.

3.  Remove, place into a warmed casserole dish to keep warm.

4.  Melt the butter in the pan, add the onion and fry until soft (around 5 mins).

5.  Add the whole shallots and garlic, cook for another minute, then the mushrooms, cook for another 2 minutes, then the wine and bring to the boil.

6.  Stir in the tomato puree and let the liquid reduce for around 5 mins, then stir in the thyme and add the stock.

7.  Pour the liquid into the casserole dish, cover and place into the oven for 2-2.5 hours or until beef is tender.

8.  If necessary, pour gravy off into a saucepan and boil until reduced and syrupy.  I found I didn't need to do this part, as the sauce was at perfect consistency.

Printable version

Serve with Boulangere potatoes, curly kale cooked briefly in boiling water for 3 mins, and carrots.

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