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!

Curry baked chicken with Slow cooker split pea dhal

I seem to have a "thing" going on with chicken right at the moment.

I think what it is, is that I've suddenly hit upon the ruse of instead of buying just chicken breasts (which the menfolk both prefer), I also buy one or two chicken legs at the same time (which I prefer).  This means that :
a) the chicken breasts go further - we get 5 for £5, so they are good for at least 2 recipes, if not 3;
b) I get to enjoy chicken dishes more and 
c) I have the benefit of having some chicken on the bone to cook alongside the breast in casseroles, which helps the flavour along a lot.

Chicken legs are a lot cheaper to buy than breasts too - and every little helps.

So, because I can now have lovely chicken leg meat instead of boring old "every forkful is the same" breast meat, it has rekindled my love of chicken.

Yes, you're right, I should have thought of it before now - but there we are.  Some things take a while to sink in.

You'll remember the Curry Baked Chicken that I made along with the Vegetable Curry?  Well, if not, you can find it here.

The chicken for this recipe is almost the same as that, the only difference is that I forgot to marinate it for as long.

However, it really didn't seem to matter - it was just as delicious.

Now I don't normally repeat recipes so soon, but that chicken was so good it had to be made again - and it was a no-brainer when I was considering having my first go at making dhal.  The yummy chicken, some plain white basmati rice and the dhal as the side dish - perfect.

As I say, I have never made dhal (or daal or any other way you might want to spell it) before.  I've seen it made often enough and it appeared to either be incredibly complicated with an ingredients list as long as your arm, or incredibly easy and how I could imagine it would be made in an Indian household.  But which way to go?  Well, it doesn't take Einstein to work out that I'd be more interested in the home style method of cooking than the restaurant method of cooking - so I set about researching my recipe.

I hadn't considered using the slow cooker at all, but I found a couple of recipes that utilised their slow cookers to great effect.  I was intent on making yellow split pea dhal and, after further consideration, it made sense to me that long slow cooking could only be good for such a dish.  It allows the full flavour of each ingredient to develop over time and because you're using dried yellow split peas unsoaked, I figured that they'd need a bit of time!  I couldn't see Indian families usually whipping up a dhal in a half an hour (although I'm sure it happens) so settled upon using the slow cooker.

For all that the ingredients list is fairly lengthy, believe me, it's brief in comparison with some of them!  I took what I considered to be the best of the ingredients listed for many recipes and felt that this collection would turn out a good flavoured dhal that would suit our taste.  I was right - and it did!

In fact, the dhal was so good that once the weather turns back to being cold, wet and miserable, I have every intention of making another batch simply to have for lunch over successive days.  There was quite a bit left over from this batch, which I boxed up and kept in the fridge and it fed me for two lunchtimes, during which time it just got better and better.

Both hubby and son & heir approved of the dhal and ate every little bit.  Hubby felt that the split peas could have had a little longer in the slow cooker as they were still a teensy bit firm - and I'm sure it wouldn't have hurt them to have gone for an hour or so longer.  I may try that next time and put them on for 5 hours instead of the 4 they were cooked for this time, although I actually liked them with the bite that they had.  Never having ordered dhal from an Indian restaurant, I was scratching around in the dark a little bit as to the best texture - but everyone enjoyed it, so I think I did good in the end!

If you are a regular dhal maker, I'd be most interested for you to make this recipe and let me know what you think.  Alternatively, if you've never made dhal before and you have a slow cooker, do give it a go!  I'm sure you won't regret it.

CURRY BAKED CHICKEN WITH SPLIT PEA DHAL      (Serves 3 - with dhal left over)

Ingredients :

300g dried yellow split peas
700ml hot water
1 tablespoonful of sunflower oil
2 onions, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped finely
1 red chilli, seeds optional, sliced finely
a thumb sized piece of fresh ginger, grated
2 heaped teaspoonfuls of ground cumin
2 heaped teaspoonfuls of ground coriander
2 heaped teaspoonfuls of ground turmeric
a large handful of fresh coriander - mostly stems - chopped
400g tin of chopped tomatoes
2 teaspoonfuls of vegetable stock powder
10g salted butter
a pinch of sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
3 skinless boneless chicken breasts (or 2 breasts, 2 legs)
2 dessert spoonfuls of Greek yoghurt
1.5 dessert spoonfuls of mango chutney
1.5 dessert spoonfuls of curry paste
1 garlic clove, chopped finely.

Method :

1.  Place the split peas and the water into your slow cooker and turn on to High.

2.  Heat the oil in a frying pan and add the onion.  Fry on a medium to high heat until transparent and just starting to brown.

3.  Add the garlic, chilli, ginger and spices.  Stir well to combine and continue to cook for another few minutes, to cook out the spices.

4.  Add the fresh coriander and the tomatoes, along with the vegetable stock powder.  Stir well to combine and heat through.  Once hot, decant into the slow cooker and stir to combine.

5.  Replace the lid on the slow cooker and cook on High for 4 hours.

6.  When the 4 hours are almost up, start with cooking the chicken by cutting each chicken breast into three pieces.

7.  Place the yoghurt, curry paste, chutney and garlic into a bowl and stir to combine.  Add the chicken and toss liberally in the mixture.

8.  Place the chicken in separate pieces onto a baking tray and spoon the remains of the mixture over the top of each piece.  Bake at 200degC/400degF/Gas 6 for 20-25 minutes, until the chicken is white throughout and the surface has begun to caramelise.

9.  In the meantime, give the dhal a stir and taste for seasoning.  Add sea salt and black pepper to taste, plus the butter.  Allow the butter to melt, then stir through.

10.  Serve the chicken and dhal with some plain boiled basmati rice.

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Simple Slow Cooker Beef Goulash, but with loads of flavour

You know me, I like recipes that are simple.  Not just because they are easy to make (and that's an undeniable truth), but because a few good ingredients, combined with care, seem to make such excellent dishes.

I spotted this Goulash recipe on the goodfoodchannel.co.uk website and was immediately attracted to it because of the shortness of its ingredients list.  Now I know there are those amongst you who will tut and say "it's not authentic!", but the way I see it, Goulash has been made for so many years by so many different ethnicities of people, that it's probably like my favourite Cottage Pie, in that there are many ways of producing what amounts to the same thing.

So let me say from the word go, that with this recipe I wasn't looking to make an "authentic" Eastern European Goulash, but a Goulash-style beef stew that would fill empty corners and warm the cockles of our hearts.  After all, with the snow that's been blowing around our garden, our hearts have needed their cockles warming from time to time!

Now because the recipe uses beef and because of hubby's dislike of even remotely chewy meat, I decided to use the slow cooker.  As a result, the recipe has been somewhat re-written with that in mind, but the ingredients stayed (almost) the same.  The original recipe can be found here if you are interested but don't want to use a slow cooker, otherwise, read on!

Alongside the Goulash, I serve white rice and garden peas - I just added the frozen peas to the rice saucepan with 5 minutes to go.  If you're going to do the same, allow the full five minutes as the ice of the peas reduces the heat of the boiling water and you need time for it to regain a full boil in order to finish cooking both peas and rice.

I also served some roasted carrots, beetroot, radishes and onion.  These had been tossed in sunflower oil and seasoned with sea salt and freshly ground pepper before being added to a moderate oven for 35-45 minutes' roasting.  It was the first time I'd ever roasted fresh beetroot and I was jolly impressed by the flavour, which - perhaps not surprisingly - went very well with the Goulash.  None of us were impressed by the roasted radishes though, as the roasting appeared to concentrate the cabbagey flavour in them, rather than the sweetness or pepperiness.  I don't think we'll be doing roast radishes again, somehow!

Along with the lemon soured cream - which made a pleasant change from plain soured cream and provided a lovely acidity which balanced both the Goulash and the sweetness of the roasted vegetables, the whole combination made a very acceptable Sunday dinner.  I know that I was completely stuffed by the end of it - and didn't start to get peckish again until breakfast time the next morning.  All of which, I consider a real result.

Hubby declared himself rather underwhelmed by the flavours, however I suspect he was anticipating a more pronounced smoked paprika flavour.  Smoked paprika is one of his favourites, yet I'm not so keen on it and had tamed the recipe by the use of 1 teaspoonful of sweet smoked paprika along with 1 teaspoonful of hot smoked paprika.  Although the original recipe doesn't say what type of smoked paprika to use, I know that hubby was expecting more of the hot version - which could account for his being underwhelmed.  He enjoyed the meal - loved the roasted beetroot - and was perfectly satisfied with the Goulash, just expected rather more from it than it delivered.  Son and heir thought the Goulash was "lush" and the lot disappeared - including the roast beetroot, which was a major surprise.

Personally, I really liked the end result of this recipe.  It didn't compromise on flavour and the use of fresh tomatoes instead of tinned tomatoes was a real revelation to me.  I think I'll be swapping those two in future recipes - which will be interesting, no doubt!  The red peppers were definitely there, but didn't overwhelm the flavour profile (for once).  So often, when you use red pepper in a dish, it becomes the predominant flavour.  I think because they were chargrilled peppers from a jar instead of fresh red peppers - and only 50g of them - it made all the difference.

All in all, a great cockle-warmer!

SLOW COOKER BEEF GOULASH    (serves 4)

Ingredients :

750g beef brisket, trimmed of fat and cut into chunks
1 heaped tbsp plain flour
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 tbsp rapeseed or sunflower oil - or any combination of the two
2 onions, diced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
3 tomatoes, seeds removed and roughly chopped
50g chargrilled red peppers from a jar, rinsed if in vinegar, sliced into strips
1 tsp hot smoked paprika
1 tsp sweet smoked paprika

400ml beef stock (I used Essential Cuisine beef stock)
1 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
zest of half a lemon
1 tbsp lemon juice
1-200ml soured cream.

Method :

1.  In the morning of the day you're planning on eating the Goulash, place the flour and seasonings into a large plastic bag, then add the beef cubes.  Seal the bag and give it a good shake to toss the beef in the seasoned flour.

2.  Pour the oil into a large frying pan and place over a moderate heat to bring up to temperature.  Test whether the oil is hot enough, by touching one corner of a piece of beef to the oil.  If it frizzles and fries, the oil is ready.  Add (gently!) the beef to the frying pan and reserve any remaining flour.

3.  Brown the beef to a stage where it is just beginning to caramelise, on at least three sides.  Using a slotted spoon, decant into the slow cooker, leaving any surplus oil behind.  Switch the slow cooker on, using the "low" setting if you're wanting to take all day about cooking the Goulash, or "high" if you've only got 4-5 hours.

4.  Add the onions and fry, stirring frequently, until softened and golden.  Add the garlic and turn the heat down.  Cook for another couple of minutes, taking care not to let the garlic burn.

5.  Add the tomatoes and continue to fry, until the tomato pieces have softened and begun to break up.  Add the paprika and the leftover seasoned flour and stir to combine.  Cook for another minute or so.

6.  Add the beef stock gently, stirring all the time to combine it with the pan's contents easily and not wind up with lumps.

7.  Add the sliced peppers and stir to combine.  Bring back up to a simmer, then decant the lot into the slow cooker and give everything a good stir.

8.   Cook for the requisite time (4-5 hours on high, or 9-10 hours on low).  An hour or so before you are due to serve, taste for seasoning and adjust if necessary and if the sauce is rather too thin, cook with the lid half on/half off for an hour, to reduce the liquid.  However, if you're doing this, you need to keep an eye on it!

Serve with the parsley sprinkled over and the lemon soured cream beside.

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Slow cooked Cumberland beef stew with donkey carrots

When I first set out to make this meal, it was supposed to be a crispy topped Cumberland pie.  However, I ran out of puff part way through it - and discovered how yummy just the beef part of the recipe could be on its own.

As with a lot of my recipes these days, this one has taken bits from several different recipes.  However, the original inspiration came from the BBC Good Food website and their Crispy topped Cumberland pie.

The original version was made with feather blade beef, however I opted to use our favourite shin of beef because a) I was going to be slow-cooking it and b) the flavour of beef shin is amazing.  However, this plan back-fired on me this time around - as you'll discover later.

I liked the idea of the sliced potatoes on top, along with the baked to crispiness cheese coating.  Cheddar always goes so well with beef, they are a real comfort food pairing.  I was a bit nervous about the sliced potatoes, however, as I've not had a lot of luck with them in the past.  They either wind up still hard (not long enough in the oven) or turn black and unappetising looking (wrong type of potato, left too long before baking).  You see, I know what I did wrong in the past - so I was determined not to commit any of these crimes this time around.  Hubby always greets the idea of sliced potato on top of a savoury dish with great scepticism, so I not only had my own failures to beat, I had his expectations to exceed too.

Swimming around happily

When it got closer to the time when I would make the transfer from the slow cooker to the oven, I think I had got myself so wound up over the potatoes failing (again), that I just opted for the easier route and didn't bother.

The marriage of beef and cheese is what makes a "Cumberland" something, Cumberland.  So, rather than miss the whole point of the recipe, I remembered seeing Jamie Oliver adding some grated cheese to a beef casserole - and did the same.  It was very definitely counter-intuitive to be grating cheddar into a beef casserole, but for all that it didn't taste obviously of cheddar cheese, it very definitely made a difference in both flavour and texture.

I must pause here and comment on the carrots.  You see, carrots have such a fundamental part to play in British cooking.  They appear on so many plates over the course of a lifetime's meals, yet rarely do you see anyone doing anything exciting with them (apart from the occasional carrot cake and maybe a carrot & coriander soup).  Now, I'm not saying that adding them to this stew was exciting, but if we could just have a little bit of appreciation here for the 'umble carrot in all its many forms, I think it would be appropriate.  The carrots used in this stew were the big fat donkey carrots.  None of your thin, springtime carrots, or your fancy Chantenay carrots.  Oh no.  What you need are big, fat, coarse carrots that are going to stand being cooked for a long time and have loads of sweetness to impart.

I love the name "donkey carrots" and have been wracking my brains to try and remember where I first heard the term.  It was either care of Raymond Blanc on his "Kitchen Secrets" programme - he is so funny in this programme! - or with Michael Caines during his carrot episode of the Great British Food Revival.  Either way, "donkey carrot" just suits this great big honking lump of carrotiness perfectly - and "donkey carrots" they shall be, for me, in future.  (I can remember when I owned horses and a donkey, buying a 25kg bag of just these type of carrots, for their feed!  More than one of them went home with me and wound up on my plate!).

Now, what was the end result like, I hear you ask?  Well, I loved it, son & heir loved it but hubby - oddly - couldn't take the texture of the beef shin.

See what I mean by connective tissue?  Can't trim it all out!

I'm really not sure what the difference was, as we've had and eaten beef shin on many other occasions and he hasn't experienced the same problem, plus I didn't notice any difference in the meat as I was trimming it up.  Trimming up beef shin is always a labour of love, so I very definitely went over it with a fine toothcomb for yukky fat and globby bits.  Shin of beef contains a lot of connective tissue, which during the course of slow cooking melts into the gravy and gives it a very rich, almost glutinous texture.  It makes me wonder if the addition of the cheese to the gravy didn't just push the texture over the edge of palatable for hubby, as he really is so terribly sensitive to soft textures in food.

For me, the cheese made the gravy incredibly savoury, rich and unctuous along with giving it a certain indefinable and very pleasant something.  I really liked the carrot and the combination of onions and celery had just melted away into the gravy.  I used my favourite Knorr Rich Beef Stock Pot to provide a good amount of additional "oomph!" to the gravy base - they really are indispensable to me, now.

That oddly coloured carrot on the right, is a purple carrot!

So all in all, I'd very definitely do this recipe again - but I think I'd choose something like Brisket of beef, or perhaps Silverside (depending on the price!), both of which have far less connective tissue and thus would make it palatable for hubby.  After all, there's no point spending all that time trimming, cooking and serving if he can't eat it!

SLOW COOKED CUMBERLAND STEW WITH DONKEY CARROTS   (feeds 4)

Ingredients :

1 tbsp rapeseed oil
6-700g beef brisket (or braising cut of your choice)
2 big donkey carrots, peeled and chopped into chunky pieces
2 onions, chopped
2 celery sticks, chopped
3 bay leaves
1 tbsp tomato puree
1 tbsp tomato ketchup
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 Knorr Really Beefy Stock Pot (or a beef stock cube)
1 tsp Bovril
half a tsp of freshly ground black pepper
500ml hot water
1 tbsp softened butter
2 tbsp plain flour
a large handful of grated mature cheddar cheese.

Method :

1.  Heat the oil in a frying pan until really quite hot.  Add the beef - you may need to do this bit in stages, so as not to overcrowd the pan - and sear until you have a good dark golden brown colour on at least two sides.  Decant into the slow cooker with a slotted spoon and turn it to low, making sure to replace the lid.

2.  Add the carrots to the slow cooker and replace the lid.

3.  Add the onion to the frying pan (you may need a touch more oil) and cook gently for 5-6 minutes until softened, transparent and just beginning to take on colour.

4.  Add the celery and continue to cook for another 2-3 minutes.

5.  Add the bay leaves, tomato puree, tomato ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, stock pot (or stock cube, if using), Bovril, pepper and water and stir gently to combine as it heats through.

6.  In a small dish, mix the butter and flour together.  Remove the frying pan from the heat and add a teaspoonful of the flour mixture to the gravy.  Stir well to ensure it mixes in without forming lumps.  Continue until you have the consistency you prefer - less flour mix for thinner, more flour mix for thicker.

7.  Return the pan to the heat and stir until properly thickened.

8.  Decant into the slow cooker.  Replace the lid and leave to cook for the next 8-10 hours.

9.  Just prior to serving, remove the lid and using the slotted spoon, move the meat to one side of the slow cooker.

10.  Add the grated cheddar to the non-meat side and stir it gently into the gravy.  Once melted, stir the meat back in to the cheesy gravy.

Serve.

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Slow Cooker Veal Marsala - using British Rose Veal at its best

Ever since I discovered British Rose Veal and first became aware of the plight of the male dairy calves, I've wanted to encourage everyone I meet to give a try to British Rose Veal.  Now, if this recipe doesn't do that, I guess there's no hope for you all.

As always, when I receive something new to work with, I have a look across the internet to see what other people are doing with it - and then do something different.  Well, at the very least it shows me which sorts of recipes are used a lot (and so I'll steer clear of those) and more to the point, it demonstrates what are the popular methods of cooking the item.  Sometimes, you see, I haven't a clue what temperature to use or how long for, etc.

With this British Rose Veal, because Farmers Choice Free Range Ltd had kindly sent a number of different cuts, I'd had plenty of opportunity to explore some different recipes and methods, so having got to know the meat a bit better, I was better able to consider doing justice to a classic recipe.  Apart from Wiener Schnitzel, one of the most popular recipes seemed to be Veal Marsala.

Look how lean the veal is!  Just beautiful.

Now, the cut of British Rose Veal I had available for this recipe was some escalopes - and the Wiener Schnitzels had been calling to me from way back down the ages.  I can remember my parents ordering Wiener Schnitzel when I'd been going through my Bockwurst & Kartoffelsalat phase, when we lived in Germany.  However, Veal Marsala had the additional attraction of being new to me.  Plus, we'd been after a bottle of Marsala wine for absolutely ages - and this gave me the perfect opportunity to finally track one down!

So - and I still have a small niggling regret that we didn't get the chance to do Wiener Schnitzels - I settled on Veal Marsala and the hunt for the wine was on.

Mise en place - including the elusive Marsala

Having checked out three local supermarkets and a couple of off licences, we had drawn a blank.  So what do you do, when you can't find what you're looking for in the shops these days?  Why, ask on Twitter, what else?  One of my lovely foodie friends pointed us in the direction of our local Sainsbury's - where we'd been already - but with directions as to what to look for.  There, hiding behind some other bottles, hubby found the elusive Marsala wine.  Success!

I had been giving the recipe some serious contemplation, involving researching so called "classic" versions of Veal Marsala and some rather less than "classic" versions.  I wanted to keep to a fairly classic representation of the recipe, but knew that I'd be cooking it in the slow cooker.  Now when Veal Marsala was first developed and recorded, slow cookers hadn't been invented.  Hence, there aren't very many recipes out there dedicated just to Veal Marsala in the slow cooker.  I knew I'd have to make some adaptations and adjustments to the traditional recipe.

However, as it turned out, the traditional recipe is remarkably simple.  How often does that happen?  Some of the best, classic, traditional recipes often turn out to involve just five or six ingredients.  I can understand this move towards "keeping it simple"!  So converting the recipe to be used with the slow cooker wasn't difficult.

Shallot, carrot, mushroom & tarragon

My recipe involves two large departures from the traditional.  Firstly, is the inclusion of some finely chopped mushroom at the mirepoix (ordinarily, celery, onion & carrots) stage.  I had found that mushroom goes so very well with veal, that I felt it was worth boosting the mushroom flavour from the button mushrooms.  Hence the addition of the finely chopped mushrooms which would ultimately just dissolve into the sauce/gravy and become an intensely mushroom background flavour.

Into the slow cooker - and forget about it for 4 hours

Secondly, is the inclusion of some tarragon herb.  Now, I will admit that this was an afterthought brought on by finding some surplus-to-requirements leftover tarragon in the fridge.  It just struck me that as both chicken and pork use tarragon to such good effect, that I couldn't see how it wouldn't be able to produce the same results with veal.

These two additions to the recipe increased the layers of flavour in the end result - and I thoroughly recommend them to you.

I had quite expected the veal escalopes to fall apart in the slow cooker , but in fact they were quite robust and held together very well.  They were, of course, meltingly tender and the button mushrooms were just a joy.  They had absorbed the flavour of the Marsala wine and were like little juicy flavour bombs - just scrumptious.

As predicted, the finely chopped mushroom had dissolved and wasn't in evidence, but had left a scaffolding of mushroom flavour that held that sauce up beautifully.  The tarragon was there, but not dominant in flavour - which was as I had hoped.  The lovely Marsala wine - which in its natural state tastes not unlike a fine sherry - was very definitely the dominant flavour in the sauce, which is as it should be.  Because of its inherently natural sweetness, the British Rose Veal is the perfect bedfellow for the Marsala wine - with the carrots and shallots adding points of savoury sweetness (if there is such a thing) along the way.  I was glad of the mushrooms and tarragon, as they stopped the dish from becoming too sweet and was pleased with the effect of the additional mushroom in the sauce.

On the whole, I think this was one of my most successful recipes involving British Rose Veal to date.

I served the veal with mashed potatoes, parsnip, carrot, swede, broccoli and brussels sprouts.  I may have got slightly carried away on the vegetable front there - but at least we got our five-a-day in! 

SLOW COOKER VEAL MARSALA   (serves 3)

Ingredients :

1 tbsp rapeseed oil
a knob of butter
500g British Rose Veal escalopes
2 banana shallots, quartered and sliced finely
4 chestnut mushrooms, chopped finely
1 large carrot, peeled, quartered and diced finely
a small bunch of parsley, chopped finely
2-3 sprigs of fresh tarragon, chopped finely
150g button mushrooms, cleaned and left whole
150ml Marsala wine
150ml veal stock (I used Essential Cuisine's veal stock - but chicken would do at a pinch)
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
a small amount (2 tsp approx) cornflour.

Method :

1.  Heat the butter and rapeseed oil in a frying pan and, once the butter has melted, brown the escalopes on both sides.  Remove to the slow cooker and turn to low.  Replace the lid.

2.  Add a little more rapeseed oil if necessary to the pan and add the shallots and cook on a moderate heat until the shallots are transparent and softened.

3.  Add the chopped mushrooms and carrots and continue to cook until the mushrooms have taken on the butter and oil and appear softened.

4.  Add the parsley and tarragon and stir through.

5.  Decant the whole lot into the slow cooker, add the button mushrooms and replace the lid.

6.  Allow the pan to heat up again and, once hot, add the Marsala wine and allow to frizzle for a moment or two, before adding the stock and a little sea salt and black pepper.

7.  Decant the mixture into the slow cooker and gently stir to combine evenly.  Replace the lid and turn to medium.  Forget about it for the next 4 hours.

8.  Once the time is up, gently remove the escalopes to a plate and add a little water to the cornflour in a small bowl - just enough to get the cornflour moving.

9.  Add half the cornflour to the slow cooker and stir briskly to prevent any lumps forming.  If the sauce requires further thickening, add the other half of the mixture until the sauce is at your preferred consistency.

10.  Re-introduce the escalopes to the sauce and replace the lid for some 5-10 minutes, just to bring the meat back up to temperature.

Serve with mashed potatoes and a selection of steamed vegetables.

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Kid Goat done in the Slow Cooker - Seco de Chivo

I was chatting on Twitter with Jason at Farmer's Choice, talking about the British Rose veal dish I was making - Veal Marsala, which I'll blog about very soon - and the problem of the waste of veal calves that are shot at birth (or thereabouts) through there being very little call for the meat.

Much to my surprise - and only because I hadn't thought about it, but it made sense once I knew - they mentioned that there is a similar problem in the goat milk industry, with male kid goats being killed at birth.  Obviously, female kid goats can go back into the industry and provide milk - but there is very little call for goat meat and so the male goats are just disposed of as being surplus to requirements.

Now I'm sure you all know (by now) how I feel about the veal calves - and there is really no difference with regard to kid goats.  If we're going to keep on producing male kid goats, then surely we need to develop a liking for the meat and so provide these little fellows at least with a short, but happy, life.

Pre-trimming - see what I mean about the fat?

Because he's lovely like that, Jason immediately offered to send me a pack of Farmer's Choice stewing goat meat, to sample.

Well, that sent me into a bit of a spin, as never having cooked with goat before I had no reference as to how to deal with it.  The first question that arose was how old the goat was, as that made a huge difference to how it was cooked.  A lot of the advice I was being given was with regard to "grown-up" goat meat, which can be tough.  It turned out that this goat meat is just 3-4 months old - so still very much kid goat.  "Treat it like spring lamb" was the advice.

I spent three days or more, looking at goat recipes and trying to avoid making the famed Caribbean Curry Goat.  It just seemed such an obvious thing to do - and you can find recipes all over the internet for Curry Goat.  I wanted to find something tasty and different to do with my goat.

The recipe I wound up with - "Seco de Chivo", translates as "Dry Goat".  However, the way I cooked it, meant it wound up being anything but dry - both in the texture of the meat and the quantity of the sauce.  I may not have carried out the recipe in its true character - but looking at various photographs of the same dish online, I think I came pretty darned close.

Upon unpacking the goat meat, I discovered that with 1kg, I had rather more meat than I was anticipating.  I had imagined that, because the goat was so young, it would be scrawny and more bone than meat.  In fact, what I had in front of me was a very decent quantity of meat, some bone (which is always good for flavour in a stewing pack) and rather more fat than I had expected.  I suppose it just goes to show how well the kid goats were looked after, that they managed to build up such a good fat covering in just 3-4 months!  Now this fat immediately presented itself as something of a challenge.  You'll remember how fat phobic my menfolk are - which is why we never cook pork belly, for instance.  Lamb shanks are also out for the very same reason.  However, not all of the pieces of goat were fatty - there were three large shoulder chop shaped pieces that looked very good.  So after some judicious trimming (which the three waggy-tailed dustbins were very happy to help with - and Jonty, the Saluki, would have it be known that originating from the Middle East as they do, he was put on this earth to eat goat) I was left with a pretty decent amount of usable meat - probably around 600g or so.

All ready for 4 hours' thinking about life

Now, at £7 for the 1kg pack, the price doesn't seem so bad until you realise that you're going to have to use the entire pack for your one dinner.  I have to admit that I was anticipating using half - as 500g of meat usually does us for one dinner for 3.  Because of the bone and fat that's involved in the weight - and is inedible at the end of the process - it just goes to show that kid goat meat isn't going to be mainstream fare just yet!  Well, not unless we all get behind it and cook it regularly - so causing the price to reduce.

As I had never tasted goat in anything but milk & cheese before, when browning the meat, I had cut off a sliver to try in its plain fried format.  My goodness, but I was so surprised at both the texture and the flavour!

Now anyone who has ever succumbed to the gorgeous smells that browning steak gives off and cut a slice for "cutter's tasters" (as my Dad refers to it), will know that sometimes what smells gorgeous is often fairly tough and indigestible without resting.  Not with this kid goat.  The piece of meat just melted in the mouth and the flavour was so sweet!  I was just blown away by its sweetness - way, way sweeter than lamb would have been.  I was expecting a certain goaty mustiness to the flavour, but no - it was absolutely divine.  I wondered then about the wisdom of putting it with big flavours in the cooker, but bowing to popular goaty recipes - and my recipe was specifically for kid goat - continued on.

I was also prepared to be slightly challenged by the smell of the kid goat meat cooking in the frying pan - as I was when I browned off some wild rabbit pieces once.  There was none of that, though, as the smell was very slightly lamby but with an indefinable quality that was obviously goat - but being new to me, I found it hard to put a finger on it.  Not at all unpleasant.

The flavours that accompanied the browned goat meat into the slow cooker were amazing in their combination.  Red onion, garlic, green peppers, cumin, chilli, tomato, pale ale (I know!), oregano, honey, celery and allspice all combined to make a really surprising and interesting sauce.

Should I ever be called upon to make this dish again - and it would be fabulous with lamb, if you don't fancy or can't find goat - I will definitely pour off the sauce at the end of the cooking period and reduce it in a saucepan so as to intensify the flavours, instead of just plain old thickening it.  I think we may have lost some of the complexity of the sauce by omitting that process - but it is one of the hazards of converting a casserole into the slow cooker.  I've reflected this change in the recipe below.

So what did we think of the finished dish?

Well, I liked it - and would have liked it more, with the sauce having been reduced instead of thickened.  I have no compunction in picking meat off of bones and a certain degree of fattiness doesn't bother me.  For instance, I'd be perfectly prepared to eat pork belly.  However, if the idea of pork belly fills you with revulsion - then the goat stew pack isn't for you.  The delicate flavour of the meat became somewhat lost in amongst the big flavours involved in the sauce and the meat lost a lot of its character.  I can't imagine it ever succeeding as curry goat, as it would be utterly tasteless in amongst the fiery curry spices.  For such a tender, gently flavoured meat as young kid goat, it needs to be accompanied by subtle flavourings.

Hubby absolutely hated the degree of fattiness involved in the stew pack meat, but liked the meat itself.  As he said, it has a character all of its own.  You can't say "oh, it's like young veal" or "spring lamb" as it just isn't.  It is kid goat - and until you've tasted it, you won't recognise it.  However, we did agree that anyone who likes lamb and pork would definitely like kid goat.

Son & heir was like his Dad in being challenged by the fattiness, but enjoyed what meat he could find.  He very definitely missed the obvious, large lumps of meat that comes with a diced chicken breast, or beef brisket.  He's only just recently got used to accepting sauce or gravy on his meat, so having to sieve out the meat from the sauce wasn't entirely his "thing".  However, he had no qualms over the flavour.

Considering we were all agreed that, in another incarnation, we would all eat kid goat again - I think we can class this experiment as a success.

Now, a quick word about the couscous dish that I served the goat with.

This is after the style of Ottolenghi's "Ultimate Winter Couscous", except made a little less complicated and with a somewhat different finish.  I made up the couscous with some of the lovely Essential Cuisine Vegetable Stock powder, which gave it a lovely flavour and slight saltiness, along with a knob of butter which melted and got mixed in.  I oven roasted small cubes of butternut squash, carrot, parsnip, courgette and quartered mushrooms, that had been tossed in rapeseed oil, hot paprika and ground cumin prior to roasting.  I then mixed those all into the couscous, along with some sliced spring onion, chopped dates, fresh mint leaves and fresh coriander.  Once served, the plate was sprinkled with Sumac and drizzled with my new favourite ingredient, Pomegranate Molasses.  Wowser but that stuff has punch!

Sitting back and looking at the finished plateful, I had to admit, it was certainly different!

SECO DE CHIVO  (Kid goat cooked in the slow cooker)  Feeds 3

Ingredients :

1kg kid goat stew meat (or cubed lamb shoulder)
2 tbsp rapeseed oil
1 red onion, chopped finely
2 garlic cloves, grated
1 green capsicum pepper, cored, de-seeded and cut into chunks
half a tsp of ground cumin
half a tsp of ground black pepper
1 red chilli, seeds removed
2 large vine ripened tomatoes (the tastier the variety, the better)
300ml pale ale
half a tsp oregano
1 tsp honey
1 celery stalk, chopped (include leaves if there are any)
a large pinch of allspice
sea salt
3 or 4 sprigs of fresh coriander, chopped, for sprinkling.

Method :

1.  In a large frying pan, heat the oil until very hot.  Sear the goat meat until lightly browned.  Using a slotted spoon, remove the meat to the slow cooker and turn it to low.

2.  Reduce the heat under the frying pan and add the onions.  Fry until softened.

3.  Add the garlic and fry for another minute or so, then add the green peppers and continue to cook until beginning to soften.

4.  Add the cumin and black pepper.

5.  Meanwhile, in a food processor or with a hand blender, blend together the chilli, tomatoes and 100ml of the beer.

6.  Add the mixture to the frying pan, along with the honey, oregano, allspice and celery.

7.  Add the remainder of the beer and stir through.

8.  Taste to check the seasoning and add a little sea salt, if necessary.

9.  Decant into the slow cooker and gently stir to distribute the meat amongst the sauce.

10.  Cook on low for 4 hours.

11.  At the end of this period, remove the meat with a slotted spoon and reserve somewhere to keep warm.

12.  Pour the remaining sauce into a saucepan and bring to a high simmer until reduced by half - some 10 minutes or so.

13.   Replace the meat in the sauce and very gently stir to coat the meat.

14.  Serve with a sprinkle of fresh oregano.

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