This recipe makes beautiful slow cooked stew to serve over noodles or potatoes or even better filling for beef pies. I’ve taken my classic slow cooked beef stew recipe and added a Julia Child twist to it. One thing that makes Julia’s recipes taste fantastic is the separate cooking of key elements that are then combined at the end for maximum flavour. The recipe has 3 key processes: cook the beef, cook the onions and cook the mushrooms. These 3 elements are combined to make either fab stew or even better pie filling. I used my slow cooker for the beef but you could easily put it in the oven on a low heat. I do it in this in order: beef, onions, mushrooms.

Let’s get straight to the cooking.

Recipe

Ingredients – Main recipe

• 1.25-1.5 kilos of stewing beef
• flour for dusting, ground black pepper to taste
• olive oil
• 125 grams of lardons or chopped bacon
• 1 large onion, halved and sliced
• 3 tablespoons (45 ml) of brandy or cognac (I do use VSOP)
• 2 bay leaves
• a dozen whole black peppercorns
• 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary or 1 tsp of dried rosemary
• 250 mls concentrated beef stock
• 750 mls good red wine

Instructions – main recipe

1. Put slow cooker on high.
2. Dust the beef with flour and black pepper (use a ziplock bag or a shallow plate) and place in the slow cooker.
3. Heat the olive oil in a large flat bottomed skillet over medium to high heat. Add the lardons and brown slightly.
4. Halve the onion and mandolin into thin slices directly into the skillet. Soften until translucent.
5. Pour in the brandy, turn the heat to high and cook off the alcohol. When you can’t smell the alcohol, add the red wine and the beef stock. Again burn off the alcohol.
6. Prepare a bouquet garni with the bay leaves, peppercorns and rosemary. Add to the sauce.
7. Pour the sauce over the beef in the slow cooker. Cook on low/medium for 6 hours.
8. The sauce should be quite thick by the end of the cooking time. If not, drain off the sauce and thicken on the stove top with a beurre manie (you know that thing that shouldn’t work but does).
9. Combine the sauce, beef, onions and mushrooms (including cooking juices from both). Serve up over mashed potatoes or noodles. Or top with puff pastry and cook as pie.

Brown braised onions

Brown braised miniature onions

18-24 miniature onions

30 – 50 grams of butter, a shot of olive oil

125 mls of beef stock and red wine

A bouquet garni

1. Peel the onions.  This is annoying so use this blog, it works great. https://www.finedininglovers.com/article/how-to-peel-pearl-onions
2. Bring the butter and oil up to temperate in a skillet, add the onions and brown. 
3. You will need to roll them around in the butter and keep them moving.  They won’t be perfectly even in colour.
4. Add the liquid, salt and pepper to taste and the bouquet garni.  Simmer for 40/50 minutes.
5. Put to one side with their cooking liquid ready to combine in your beef stew.

Sauteed mushrooms

250 grams of quality small mushrooms (double this recipe if you have mushrooms lovers in your house)

30-40 grams of butter

Splash of olive oil

2 tablespoons of finely chopped shallots (optional)

1. Prep the mushrooms to a nice eating size, if small just remove stems, otherwise half or quarter.
2. Heat the butter and oil.
3. Add the mushrooms and shallots if using,
4. Sauté for 2-3 minutes until browned but don’t overcook. 
5. Put to one side ready to include in your beef stew.

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Autumn has well and truly arrived; 3C here this morning. Time to get out the slow cooker and make some hearty food. I have a great butcher, Hatto & Son, specialising in meat from British farms. Some times I go with a list and some times I go in and see what looks interesting. One day there was goat meat, prepped for stewing. Of course I bought it. Oh happy accident that has resulted in one of our favourite recipes; slow cooked goat curry Jamaican style. If you can’t get goat or mutton, then stewing lamb is a good substitute.

The Davinator accompanied me on a business trip to Jamaica and we stayed in a quirky little place. The evening menu was soup, plus a choice of three main dishes. If there was goat curry, the Davinator chose it every time. There was a great cook in that kitchen – cooking her authentic heart out every night. This is my homage to her great cooking.

I put mine in the slow cooker but you can also use an oven proof stock pot and put it in a low oven. I make this recipe for 8 people and start it about 10 am for dinner at 6 pm. Let’s get cooking.

Recipe

Ingredients

• 2 large onion
• 15 cloves of garlic (you can omit)
• 200 grams of ginger (I used pre-chopped from a jar, but fresh is amazing if you can get it)
• 200 mls olive oil
• 4-5 scotch bonnet chillies (see photo below) or equivalent heat
• 1 tablespoon of dried curry leaves (worth finding and buying)
• 6 thyme sprigs (or 1 tablespoon dried)
• 8 tablespoons mild curry powder
• 1.5 kilos goat or mutton diced
• All purpose flour for dredging the meat
• 2 cans (400 grams) chopped tomato
• 500 mls lamb or beef stock (recommend lamb stock cubes if you can find them)
• 2 cans of beans; pinto, kidney or black eye peas as you prefer
• Lemon juice
• Fresh cilantro (coriander)

Instructions

1. Get your slow cooker out. Dredge the meat in flour and place in the dry bowl of the slow cooker or your casserole dish. Turn it to high while you prep the remainder of the ingredients. If using the oven, say 150C or 300F.
2. Put the onion, ginger, chillies and garlic (if using) in your food processor or chopper and blend to a paste. As always, be very careful when working with fresh chillies. Use gloves or oil your hands beforehand and wash them thoroughly after. Do not touch your face!
3. Heat the oil in a deep fry pan. Add the onion mixture and cook until softened: 5 to 10 minutes.
4. Add the curry leaves, thyme, curry powder and salt (say 2 teaspoons). Cook for 5 minutes.
5. Add the tomatoes and the stock. Bring to a boil, back down to a simmer and reduce for 10 minutes.
6. Carefully pour the sauce over the meat and stir gently to combine.
7. I cooked mine for 6 hours on ‘low’ heat, you know your slow cooker, adjust the time accordingly. For oven cooking – probably 3 to 4 hours.
8. About an hour before the end of the cooking time, drain the beans and stir in. I remove the lid at this point to thicken up the sauce. Taste and see if you want more chilli and adjust accordingly.
9. Add the lemon juice and coriander just before serving.

I serve with flatbread and rice; it’s tasty and rich. If you’ve gone a little overboard with the chilli, serve with a big scoop of Greek yoghurt to cool it down.

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The weather here in London is turning towards autumn after a summer that we hardly noticed. It’s time for some easy to cook comfort food. One of our family favourites is slow cooked lamb with prunes and pearl barley. It’s a classic one pot meal – well it’s two unless your slow cooker has a sauté function. Put it on in the morning and it’s perfect for dinner plus leftovers.

I have an amazing slow cooker that will brown and also make the sauce. If yours doesn’t have that function then make the sauce separately in a deep fry pan and add to the lamb in the slow cooker.

I use lamb shanks then strip the meat off them. It will also work well with a lamb shoulder or lamb neck. The recipe is for 6 lamb shanks, a generous two kilos with the weight of the bone or approximately 1 kilos if just using stewing lamb chunks. Ginger, saffron and the sweetness of the prunes gives this dish a Middle Eastern vibe. Adding the pearl barley a couple of hours before the end allows the barley to soak up all the juices. The recipe feeds 8 people with leftovers.

Recipe

Ingredients

6 lamb shanks

300 grams prunes

4 large shallots or an onion, chopped very fine

2 carrots, chopped very fine

45 mls (3 tablespoons olive oil)

Pat of butter

250 mls dry white wine

30 grams minced ginger (I use the jarred stuff for ease)

2 teaspoons cinnamon

2 teaspoons cumin

2 teaspoons ground coriander

1/4 teaspoon saffron threads

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 litre (4 cups) lamb stock or chicken stock

250 grams of pearl barley or long grain rice.

Preparation

1. Put the saffron in a small amount of hot water. Sauté the onions, carrots and ginger in the olive oil with butter, until well softened. Add the white wine, cook at high temperature until all the alcohol in the wine has evaporated. Add the spices including the saffron and its liquid. Add the stock and bring to a simmer.
2. Pit the prunes and rough chop into halves. Put the lamb and the prunes in the slow cooker. If lamb shanks, stand them upright in the slow cooker with the bone ends up. Pour the sauce over the lamb. Cook on a low setting for six hours. Add the pearl barley or the rice about two hours before the cooking time is up. The barley will absorb most of the cooking liquid. Remove the lamb, bone it and return it to the slow cooker.
3. Allow the stew to cool for 20 to 30 minutes. You could add some mashed potatoes or Yorkshire puddings but I usually serve with a green salad or cooked green beans and a nice côte du Rhone.

Thanks for reading the blog, sharing, cooking the recipes and your comments.

Roast leg of lamb has been an Easter tradition for longer than there’s been Easter. The tradition of lamb as a celebratory meal is as old as Passover. The Jews in captivity in Egypt marked the doorposts with the blood of a first born lamb so that the plague of the first born ‘passed over’ their houses. But it’s also a practical tradition, particularly in the northern hemisphere when lamb is readily available in the spring.

A fun fact about lamb – it’s the only meat (excluding poultry) that’s not banned by a major religion. And Americans eat much less lamb than Europeans. Several historical reasons for this: the rise of cattle ranching in America (sheep make pasture unsuitable for cattle for months) and the presence of more predators. Remember, Europe has been largely settled and agrarian for much longer.

Leg of lamb is nice but the first time I put a lamb shoulder in my slow cooker – I was a convert. I’m a big fan of slow cooking and making a stew that can be frozen in batches makes more sense this year when it’s just two of us. I have a CrockPot slow cooker that sautés as well as slow cooks. It makes this a genuine one pot dish. You can also make the sauce in deep frying pan on the stove.

There are a couple of variations to ‘finish off’ the stew. I prefer adding pearl barley towards the end of cooking – it takes care of the carbs and the pearl barley freezes well. You can also thicken the stew with either cornstarch or beurre manie, as you prefer.

Let’s cook.

Ingredients

Lamb shoulder, 2 to 4 pounds, jointed so that it fits in your slow cooker

20 pitted prunes

Mild olive oil for sautéing

1 clove of garlic minced fine (optional)

Salt and pepper

1 chopped onion

2 chopped carrots

1 tablespoon minced ginger (I buy mine in jars, can’t be bothered to keep fresh ginger in the house)

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

300 mls red wine (I like Beaujolais or a young Burgundy)

300 mls lamb stock or chicken stock if you can’t get lamb

200 grams or 1 cup of dried pearl barley (if using)

Instructions

1. Heat up the slow cooker.
2. Make the sauce, either in the slow cooker or in a deep fry pan on the stove. Heat olive oil, add onion, carrots, garlic, ginger, cinnamon and a twist of salt and pepper. Cook until the onion is translucent.
3. Add the wine, increase the heat and burn off the alcohol. Add the stock and bring to a boil.
4. Combine sauce, lamb and prunes in the slow cooker. I cook this for 6 hours on high in total but you’ll know how your slow cooker works.
5. About 90 minutes before the stew is done add the pearl barley, make sure it’s submerged in the sauce.
6. When complete, gently remove the lamb from the slow cooker, it will be falling off the bone. Allow it to cool until you can handle it, then shred it – use two forks to pull it off the bone. Return the meat to the sauce and it’s ready to serve.
7. If you haven’t used the pearl barley, the sauce will be thin. You can thicken as normal with corn flour (cornstarch to Americans). Here’s a link to BBC Good Food. Or you can beurre manié. Here’s a good description of how it works.

I serve this with some roast vegetables on the side. If you haven’t added the pearl barley, combine with your carbs of choice; mashed potatoes, rice or couscous.

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We’ve had a pretty good summer in the UK. Okay, an entire test (cricket match) was essentially rained off, but in general it’s been good. Plus a couple of weeks of Indian summer in September. But it’s all change now and we’ve gone roaring into autumn – cool, windy, frequently overcast. Time for the first log fires, turning the central heating on and to make some comfort food.

This recipe is an easy low input recipe that uses your slow cooker or a low oven. Fifteen minutes early in the day gets you classic comfort food for your supper. Cooking time is a 6 to 8 hours depending on your cooker. The ingredients are simple and there’s not much special prep required. I make this is big batches, it freezes beautifully. Home cooked portioned meals in the freezer are a gift to yourself.

I use beef shin, on the bone, sliced about two inches thick by my butcher. Any beef suitable for stewing will produce good stew and feel free to substitute it for the beef shin. However, the marrow in the bones gives a lovely unctuous texture to your finished stew. I find it easy to fish the bones out at the end with any sinew or connective tissue that hasn’t fully dissolved.

I don’t brown meat when adding it to a slow cooked stew. What it the point of possibly toughening the meat to make it that little bit browner? Good quality beef stock will take care of that for you. Unusually, this stew has no wine or stout. I add pearl barley to the stew towards the end. It does a lovely job absorbing all the lovely juices. Give this versatile grain a try, lovely in stews.

Let’s get cooking.

Ingredients

• 2 kilos of beef shin (including the weight of the bones) or 1 to 1.25 kilos of stewing beef
• flour for dusting
• olive oil
• 1 large onion, halved and sliced
• 2 cloves of garlic, chopped fine (optional)
• 4 carrots, sliced
• 200 grams (one cup) of dried pearl barley
• 2 bay leaves
• a dozen whole black peppercorns or 1 tsp ground black pepper
• 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary or 1 tsp of dried rosemary
• 2 litres of beef stock
• salt, to taste

Method

1. Lightly dust the beef in flour. Place in the slow cooker in a single layer. If using the oven, use a large oven proof casserole, preferably deep.
2. Heat olive oil with a small knob of butter in a skillet. Sauté the onions and the garlic until well softened and started to brown. Add to the slow cooker or casserole.
3. Add the beef stock. It should cover or come to the top of your beef pieces.
4. Make a bouquet garni with the bay leaves, peppercorns and rosemary. If using ground pepper and dried rosemary, add all directly to the stew. Just keep an eye out for the bay leaves later.
5. Put your slow cooker on medium, or your casserole into a 140C oven and go about your life.
6. After four hours or so (no need to be precise) add the carrots. Two hours later, add the pearl barley. If you’ve decided against the pearl barley, make up some mashed potatoes or pasta when you’re ready to eat.
7. The sauce may need thickening if you haven’t used pearl barley. An hour or so before serving, either thicken with cornstarch or beurre manié. Beurre manié is one of those things that you won’t trust until you’ve tried it. Good explanation here.

Lovely with a robust red wine, some crusty bread and green vegetables on the side. Thank you for reading, sharing and commenting and for cooking the recipes.