Well if you have a Slow Cooker gathering dust in the corner where you put it after that failed attempt at a pot roast and haven't used it since, I suggest you dust it off. If you don't have a slow cooker, they are a GREAT investment - even if you only have 2 or 3 recipes - if you use them regularly then it is well worth it and trust me, these are good recipes.
Your slow cooker doesn't have to be fancy and all-singing-all-dancing, a basic slow cooker is about £20. This is mine:
We paid about £19 in Asda for it and I love it to bits! None of these complicated settings and dials and timers, and the lovely black ceramic interior cook pot lifts out for easy serving :-). You really don't have to spend a lot on one but I'd avoid the REALLY cheap ones and go with something that has a lift-out pot otherwise cleaning it is an arse.
Needless to say these recipes aren't vegetarian friendly, although by all means if you have a steak substitute give it a crack, but we aren't veggies so I have no experience at all of cooking a wide variety of meals for vegetarians.
Steak and Guinness Pie:
This started life as a Steak and Ale recipe I found in one of the Covent Garden Soup Company recipe books I picked up in one of those budget bookshops. The recipe is fairly easy but again with the faff. Also, finding a Ruby Ale in Asda or Sainsburys was really hard so we tended to use a pale ale but it comes out a touch bitter for my tastes and one day I was planning a pie and idly wondered if Guinness would work instead - it did - brilliantly, so my Steak and Guinness recipe was born. The original recipe also relies on flour for thickening and it turns out nowhere NEAR thick enough for an effective pie. So we bodged it a bit and 'modified it' for use in a Slow cooker as anyone who has eaten non-slow-cooked casserole beef can attest, it is a touch on the rubbery side.
You will need:
500g Diced Casserole beef - you can pick this up in any Supermarket it doesn't have to be anything special and we prefer IRISH beef, but after 10 hours in the slow cooker it really doesn't matter a massive amount (If you want to up the meat quantity you'll need to increase the liquids by the same factor and the garlic by a half factor - so if you want to use 1kg of beef, allow for roughly double the liquids and use 1.5 times the garlic and seasonings but we don't weigh or measure anything in this so it's a guestimate)
2 Beef Oxo cubes (or 3 if you're using 1kg of meat) as I find that supermarket beef has little flavour and the Oxo cubes give a lovely beefy richness. You can also use Knorr or whatever your favoured stock cubes are, but quantity wise 3 Oxo cubes make a pint and half (1.25 litres roughly) so adjust for the strength of your cubes.
2 Medium sized FRESH garlic cloves. None of that 'lazy garlic' crap. Well, you CAN use Lazy Garlic but I find it has a funny metallic flavour.
1 Onion of your choice. We use 1 large Red onion but if you don't like onion a small one is fine, or a large white. Whatever really, it is down to personal taste. We prefer Red onions as they are sweeter but that is just us. White ones are fine too. If you're using 1kg of meat you might want to chop 2 medium Onions of your choice.
1 tsp dried Thyme
2 440ml Tins of Guinness or bottles or whatever. The amount you use will depend on the meat. I usually end up using about 1.5 tins - you certainly don't want the full 880ml for 500g beef.
Mushrooms - however many you like and whatever type you like. You can use button mushrooms, chestnut, flat, white - it doesn't matter, use whatever you like the most and in whatever quantity you prefer. I like to use a lot of mushrooms (we buy White mushrooms down the market on a saturday morning and tend to buy a lot of them as we use them in casseroles, cottage pie and Bolognaise) as they are a great 'filler' - they bulk out your food so you can use less meat and serve more people or have enough leftovers to freeze for 2 more meals. I tend to just halve them as I like them to have a presence and texture in the sauce, but you can prepare them however you like - sliced, quartered, halved or whole.
Cornflour and Bisto Gravy POWDER - these can be bought in the supermarket. DO NOT use gravy granules. It MUST be the powder. But this is quite cheap and lasts AGES and Cornflour is really useful.
Pastry - whatever you like, home made, shop bought, pre-rolled or ready-to-roll, shortcrust, puff or filo - whatever is your favourite. We use ready-to-roll puff pastry but I've toyed with the idea of a 'crumpled filo' topping.
Pie dish/dishes. We have a large Pyrex ceramic dish we use for ours but you COULD do 'individual' pies pub-lunch style if you have the appropriate dishware.
Preparation and initial cooking takes about 20 minutes. I tend to prepare it all the night before then bung it all in the slow cooker and leave it there until the morning when I'll put it on to cook before I leave for work. Takes the hassle out of having to prepare it in the morning.
Okay, so preparation:
1) Chop Onion and Garlic. Or if you don't want to chop the garlic, crush it in a crusher or smash it with the bottom of a spoon. It doesn't really matter.
2) Fry off the Onion and Garlic in a frying pan until the onions are soft. You might like to use a little frylight or a tiny touch of oil but don't use too much or it sits unappetisingly on top of the gravy.
3) Add the meat. Sprinkle the crushed Oxo cubes over the meat while it is browning off to add flavour. You are not totally cooking the meat - 10 hours in the slow cooker will do that for you, you are just browning it off. When you cook the meat the texture 'loosens' and 'opens'. When it reaches this stage and is pretty much browned off on all surfaces it is ready for the slow cooker.
Some people toss the meat in flour or faff around with cornflour and gravy browning at this point but I don't bother. Browning off the meat until it 'loosens' stops it from going rubbery so you DO NOT need to faff around. The less faffing you do the better.
4) Place Onions, Garlic and Meat in Slow cooker. Add mushrooms. I usually add them 'raw' as they have a lovely flavour when slow cooked from raw, but if you want to toss them in the pan be my guest, but again it is more unnecessary faffing.
5) Open a tin of Guinness. Try not to drink it. Pour a little in the hot pan and stir it to dissolve the meat juices left in the pan - these are good and you want these in the pie.
6) Tip the juices out of the pan and into the slow cooker. Pour the rest of your tin of Guinness into the pot. Use as much of the second tin as you need to in order to cover the meat. I usually end up using about 650ml and giving Simon the rest :-) But this is not exact. Use however much you need to to cover the meat. The Mushrooms will float. Don't worry about them, they'll be fine.
7) Add a tsp of dried Thyme and stir well to mix.
8) I usually prepare mine the night before then stick it on before I go to work - it is fine to leave it in the pot overnight but don't forget to stir well again the next morning if you do as everything will have settled.
NOTE: I know I've not done anything with the Cornflour and Bisto yet - I'm getting to that in the next section.
Cooking:
How you like your meat and how long it will be cooking will determine what setting you put it on. I like my meat to be fall-apart-tender so I put mine on 'high' before I go to work which is at about 07:40 and by the time I get home at 17:40 it's lovely and tender. So that's about 10 hours on high. When I left it on 'low' the meat was not as tender and was slightly chewy in places. But if you're out for longer than 10 hours you might like to leave it on low. Or if you have a 'medium' setting try that. Trial and error. Give it a try on what you think is best and if it doesn't work try something else until you get the right setting. It's easy enough to prepare.
Now for the cornflour and Bisto - these are thickeners. Put a generous heaped teaspoon of each into a small dish or jar or ramiken and add enough COLD water to dissolve. You HAVE to dissolve it in cold water first or it goes lumpy. For the record, cornflour is GREAT at thickening ALL sauces and soups and stuff. Stir well to make sure all powder is dissolved then add to the cooking pot stirring the whole time you're pouring. If you don't stir it, it will go lumpy.
The sauce will thicken immediately so stir well then leave cooking while you prepare your pastry. Put the meat and sauce in the pie dish, put your pastry on top, brush with egg if you like and cook. Serve however you like.
We usually serve with carrots, peas, steamed buttered savoy cabbage and lovely creamy mash.
Done. See how easy it is? No faffing. quick prep, unattended cooking. If you're using ready-rolled pastry it's even easier!
Beef and Mushroom Casserole:
This is very similar in preparation to the Steak and Guinness Recipe and all the same rules re: slow cooker and not faffing apply.
You will need:
500g Diced Casserole beef
2 Beef Oxo
1 Vegetable Oxo
1 Onion
Mushrooms - again, whatever you like, however many you like prepared in whatever way you like best.
Splash of Worcestershire Sauce (we use Lea & Perrins classic) - how much you use is down to personal taste.
1 pint boiling water
Cornflour and Bisto Powder
NOTE: We don't use Garlic or veg but you can pretty much add whatever you like - some baby carrots or baby new potatoes would be lovely done in this I think.
Preparation:
1) Cook off the Beef and Onions with the 2 beef Oxo sprinkled over.
2) Add to slow cooker with Mushrooms.
3) Dissolve the veg Oxo in the pint of water. Pour over meat.
4) Add a splash of Worcestershire sauce to taste. Personally I don't like to use too much as you can always add a little more to taste when you get home. You can also add a tsp of Marmite for extra richness. This is optional too.
5) Turn slow cooker onto preferred setting and leave for however many hours you are out.
6) When you get home, dissolve a generous heaped tsp each of Cornflour and Bisto in cold water and stir into sauce. Allow to thicken and serve however you like. I like Beef Casserole served on a bed of rice with boiled or steamed veg, but new potatoes and baked potatoes are good with it too. You can add baby carrots to the slow cooker too if you like but to be honest, I find veg go too soft and soggy. I prefer my veg still crunchy and a bit on the al-dente side. Especially cabbage and greens - I prefer that almost raw or lightly steamed.
We also do an interesting Pickled Red Cabbage which is nice (smelly mind you) but lovely - Red cabbage, sugar, red wine vinegar and sultanas left to steam.
Please let me know how you get on with these as these recipes have been going for years in our family and the Steak and Guinness one is almost foolproof.
Lex.
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