Slow-cooked beef stew

I've been flirting with the idea of getting a slow cooker for a while now, but wasn't sure if I'd actually use it. I was pretty certain we didn't have space for it.

But when we went to visit my aunt and cousins a couple of weeks ago, my aunt served up the most delicious, sophisticated lemon and lamb stew. Which cooked in her slow cooker while we drank and caught up. My aunt, and my cousin, who is a student, talked about how useful their slow cookers were. My cousin will put a stew on for her housemates before going to lectures.

 

That tempted me. You see, I have an issue with stews. I really like them - how comforting, rich and cheap they are. But I only get to eat them at weekends, because they take so long. And at weekends, I'd rather have something that's more of a treat - steak, not good plain food!

But the slow cooker makes a wholesome comforting stew a weeknight possibility.

So, we bought a slow cooker for £9 from Tesco - at that price we could afford to experiment.

And I spent fifteen minutes before work throwing together dinner, before leaving the slow cooker to do its thing. I didn't bother to brown the meat first - my aunt and cousin told me they don't generally bother, so I didn't either!

I came back to beautiful smells, and a lovely supper, merrily simmering.

Here is the end result. With a baked potato (because this was the leftovers, so I felt I could justify putting the oven on). And gratuitous parsley, to try to make it photograph more appealingly.

Yeah. It takes a more talented photographer than me to make stew look as good as it tastes.

The recipe is below. But it's a stew, you can vary it, it won't come to any harm. I used a pint of liquid, which, as it doesn't thicken in the slow cooker, made for a lot of sauce. I think this is a good thing - just have it with something like rice or potato to soak it up - but if you'd like it less wet, halve the liquid.

As for where we're keeping the slow cooker? On the bookshelf in the spare room. And if I'll give up book storage space for something, I must like it.

Slow cooked beef stew (serves 4, or two for two nights)
One onion
400-500g stewing or braising steak
Two large carrots
Four parsnips
Two tbsp dried thyme
A glass of red wine, made up to a pint with boiling water and a beef stock cube.
2 tbsps cornflour (optional)

Slice the onion, peel the carrots and turnips, and cut them into large chunks. Put in slow cooker, add the beef and thyme, and pour over the wine-stock mixture.

Switch the slow cooker onto "low" if you're out all day (mine had about 12 hours cooking in total), "high" if you want to cook it for "just" 4-5 hours.

When you get home from work (half an hour to an hour before you want to eat), if you can be bothered, mix cornflour with a little cold water, stir into stew and turn up to high to let it thicken slightly. If you can't be bothered, the sauce will be thinner, but still lovely.