Peppered winter stew recipe

Most of you won't have noticed the neglect of this web site over the past six years or so, as there wasn't a lot there to start with. However, I've not just spent the time sleeping. One of the things I've been doing is improving my cookery skills, creating new recipes and adapting others. This one is based on a Good Housekeeping recipe, but adapted to be cooked in a slow cooker. This makes it so easy to create, fills the house with a great smell and increases the depth of flavour.

If you don't have a slow cooker, I'd really suggest you get one. They're fantastic devices, cheap to buy and use, and create some wonderful food. However, if you don't want to do that, you can always stick this in the oven. Ideally, you want a temperature of 90°C for about six hours, but feel free to adjust. Hotter ovens will need less time, but will reduce the depth of flavour.

With dumplings, this served Darac and me for two days, and we've got decent appetites. Mashed potato is a good accompaniment if you want it to serve more, or are just feeling particularly hungry. Another good addition is to add dumplings 30–40 minutes before the end of the cooking time.

Ingredients

2–3 tablespoons of plain flour.
Pepper (I get through a lot of fresh ground black, so use that).
900g–1kg stewing meat. I used beef the other day, which was great, but anything dark would work well: lamb, venison, rabbit (though be careful with bones)… take your pick. Cheap cuts are better in a slow cooker - they'll be tender and very flavoursome.
Cooking oil.
250g button onions or shallots.
1kg mixed root vegetables, such as parsnips, swede, carrots, celeriac, whatever you like the sound of or have around.
2 onions.
4 garlic cloves (or so — I love garlic, so used four Japanese single clove bulbs).
2 tablespoons tomato purée.
125ml red wine vinegar (ideally, but you could use another flavoured vinegar, or even white vinegar for this).
75cl red wine (I'm not a wine buff, and just bought the cheapest bottle of genuine wine I could and it was fine).
2 tablespoons redcurrant jelly (optional, but I'd really suggest it. Maybe even three!).
1 teaspoon dried or 1 tablespoon fresh thyme.
4 bay leaves.
600–900ml stock (ideally matching your meat, but something similar will be fine).

Method

Dice the meat. You're looking for about 4cm on a side.
Place in a plastic bag, and add enough flour to be able to coat.
Add pepper to suit your taste — more will be added for the main flavour later.
Hold the bag closed and shake well to coat the meat with the flour, adding more if necessary.
Heat about 3 tablespoons of oil in a pan until quite hot.
Add the flour-coated meat in a couple of batches, frying until seared (it doesn't need to be fully cooked, but this combined with the flour beforehand improves a finished slow cooker dish loads). After each batch is done, stick it in the slow cooker pot.
Peel your root vegetables, then chop then into cubes about the same size as you did the meat.
The original recipe suggests frying these, but that was for a stove stew, and I don't think this is really an advantage in slow cooking. If you want to, though, go for it.
Add the root veg to the pot.
Chop off both ends of the shallots or button onions and peel them.
Again, either fry the button onions or shallots, or don't. If you do, it'll mainly change the colour. Either way, during cooking they'll soak up the flavours of the rest of the dish.
Add the onions or shallots.
Peel and chop the remaining tomatoes.
Heat about 2 tablespoons of oil in a pan until at a medium heat.
Peel and crush or chop the garlic.
Add the onion and garlic to the pan and fry, stirring for about five minutes until beginning to soften.
Add the tomato purée and fry, stirring again, for about two more minutes.
Add the vinegar and wine.
Turn up the head and bring the mixture to the boil.
Adjust the heat to a medium boil and leave for ten minutes, stirring occasionally. If you've not eaten in a while, try to avoid the alcohol vapours!
Add the mixture to the pot, along with the thyme, redcurrant jelly if you're using it, and at least a tablespoon of pepper (though do adjust this to your taste).
Add enough stock to come up to the top of the ingredients in the pot (there should be at least an inch at the top for my slow cooker to work properly and allow for bubbles around the edge, speaking from experience).
If you're doing it like me, set an electrical timer to automate the next stage, watch some TV then go to bed knowing your dinner will be ready when you're back from work. Of course, this step is entirely optional.
Set your slow cooker to low for about 8 hours, or if it's got an automatic setting, do use that for the same time.
Serve and eat. The stock from this is pretty good, I'd suggest using deep plates or bowls and adding as much of it as possible. If you can't fit it all on, stick it in an old takeaway container and freeze it to re-use in a future dish.

As with all recipes, please do send in suggestions for improvements or any other comments, as I'd love to hear them.