Beef stew (in a slow cooker or on the hob)

Intro of some kind

Attendees

• Names

List of additional items required

Script

In this recipe, we’re going to make a beef stew. This is a great option for a cold day and is pretty easy to make a big batch for freezing and using later.

Now we know that beef can be expensive to buy, so if you’re worried, I’m also going to cover this recipe using mushrooms as a vegetarian substitute.

If you’re not a huge mushroom fan, you could split the recipe, so use half the beef we have listed in the ingredients below and use the other half of the weight in mushrooms.

In terms of the cost of this recipe, if you go down the beef route, you’re probably looking at between £8 to £14. If you’re going full vegetarian, we priced this using some frozen sliced mushrooms, you’re looking more like £3 to £8. If you go for a mixture, it will be somewhere in the middle.

The range of prices is about whether you’re buying the oil and herbs and things like that, or if you have them in already.

We’re going to show you how to make this recipe in either a slow cooker or on the hob.

The prep for this recipe will probably take between 10-15 minutes. If you’re cooking in a slow cooker, the cooking time will be between 4 to 8 hours. On the hob, it will be more like an hour.

The ingredients are listed below. You will also want a large saucepan with a lid or slow cooker, a frying pan, some measuring spoons and jug, a knife for chopping, a chopping board and a wooden spoon or some other utensil for stirring.

We’ll start with chopping the veg. So we’re going to chop up the onions, celery and carrots.

Reply to comment…gadgets, buying prechopped (frozen to save money), etc.

You can chop these as rough or as fine as you like. It is up to you.

Reply…taking a break in most recipes is fine, you just want to make sure you plan it so you aren’t taking a break when you’re in the middle of frying something, for example.

If you are going to take a break after chopping these, I would recommend putting the celery and onions into one bowl or container. And then the carrots in another. It will make things easier when you come to cook these.

If you are using mushrooms or your beef isn’t pre-cut, this is a good time to cut that up as well. I prefer to do all of this at once, but you can always do this in stages the day before.

My beef is already in pieces and now our veg is chopped, so I’ll just move on to frying.

We’ll start by hearing some oil and adding the onions and celery to this. You want to fry this on a low heat for about 5 minutes. Just until they start to soften.

Now we’ll add the carrots, some bay leaves and our thyme. You can use dried if you can’t get or don’t want to use fresh.

That will carry on frying for about 2 minutes just to release the flavour. When you’re done, tip everything into your big pot or slow cooker. Try to leave the oil if you can and hang on to that frying pan. We’re going to use it in a little bit, so don’t wash it up yet.

Now we can stir in the tomato puree and the Worcestershire sauce.

If you need to take a break, this is another good point to do so. Just pop the lid on and don’t turn anything on.

When you’re ready to go on to the next step, you’ll pour 600ml of boiling water over this and stir it up. Then we season.

You can crumble some stock cubes, using low salt varieties, or use something like low sodium soy sauce to add that richness. I’ve heard of people using coffee granules or small amounts of cocoa powder. It can be fun to experiment. But I’ll go with some low salt stock cubes and also add some ground black pepper.

This is where you can play with flavours.

Reply to comment

We’re going to now put the beef or mushrooms into our frying pan, browning it in batches. Once each batch is done, we add it straight to our slow cooker or pan.

So now everything is ready to go. We just turn the heat up.

In your slow cooker, you can cook on low for 8-10 hours. Or on high for 4 hours. If you’re cooking on the hob, make sure you cover it and stick with a relatively low heat for at least an hour. Just make sure you come back to stir occasionally.

When you’re ready to serve, you can add a bit of parsley and I tend to like this with a few slices of thick crusty bread. Or you can go with mash or just boiled potatoes. Whatever you feel like.

If you want to save this and freeze it for future meals, I would suggest putting it into your containers and leaving it to cool before freezing. When you’re ready to re-heat, pop it on the hob or in the microwave and heat it up slowly. You may need to add a touch of water to help it along.