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12th September 2017
Autumn | Beef | Comfort | Family | Mains | One pot | Recipes | Slow cooker

Beef and Guinness stew

Dark, rich, tasty and comforting- perfect Autumn/Winter comfort food!

 

There’s little that can get me more excited than a proper plate of beef and Guinness stew! There’s just something about it- it’s the perfect comfort food as far as I am concerned. Now for me, following Slimming World, it really is worth using those few syns up to cook this in the Guinness, as it makes such a gorgeous meal, but if you wanted to keep it syn free you could cook it just with beef stock, or with the fabulous red-wine stock pots that you can get from Tesco.

Allowing a long cooking time for this sort of beef stew is essential, as the cheaper cuts of beef need to cook longer so that they are tender- nothing worse than a chewy old chunk of beef in a stew (or overly fatty for that matter!) and I’ve experienced many bad ones in pubs that clearly haven’t allowed a long enough cooking time. In fact, I’m yet to find a pub where I’ve had a really good one- it’s like an eternal quest for me (generally looking for a good steak pie!).

Again, you could miss out the cornflour, but I much prefer a thick sauce and personally I think it’s essential.

Guinness Original is 9 syns for 500ml.

 

 

My Recipe

Serves: 4
Syns: 2.5 syns per portion
Healthy Extra: none

Ingredients

  • 500g lean casserole steak/stewing steak
  • 2 red onions, finely chopped
  • 3 sticks celery, finely chopped
  • 3 carrots, chopped into small chunks
  • 2 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 250g chestnut mushrooms, finely chopped
  • 1 tbsp cornflour
  • 3 tbsp tomato puree
  • 500ml Guinness
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1 tsp dried thyme
  • 1 tbsp dark soy sauce
  • 300ml beef stock
  • salt and pepper
  • low calorie cooking spray/spray oil

Method

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 160c
  2. Fry the onions in spray oil/cooking spray until softened, then add the celery & garlic and stir fry for a couple more minutes.
  3. Add the beef (having removed any visible fat) and fry gently until slightly browned on the outside
  4. Add in the cornflour, and stir through to coat the beef.
  5. Pour in the Guinness and bring to a simmer.
  6. Add the tomato puree, soy sauce, carrot, mushrooms, thyme, bay leaves. Season with salt and pepper.
  7. Bring up to a fast simmer, and stir everything together well.
  8. Transfer to a casserole dish, and add about 300ml beef stock.
  9. Pop into oven and cook for 3 hours. Have a peek after 2 hours, and add more beef stock if it's starting to look like it's drying out.

Additional Info

Also lovely with some added smoked bacon in. You could also cook this in the slow-cooker, I'd give it 8-12 hours on low.

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