Rosemary and garlic beef stew
A rich and tasty beef stew, made in the slow cooker for tender meat and lovely flavour.
20 mins
10 hours
278 kcals
serves 6
ROSEMARY AND GARLIC BEEF STEW
In 2001 my Grandma sent me a slow-cooker in the post to my university house- she obviously thought it was a kitchen essential, and remembered that my very favourite of all the meals that she cooked was her steak pie, which had a gorgeous filling made in the slow cooker. It came with a little booklet, and the very first recipe in it was a beef and ale stew. I don’t think I ever made it past that page in the book as it was so good I didn’t cook anything else in the slow cooker for years!
As much as I love beef and ale stew, I wanted to find an alternative that didn’t involve ale or red wine. It’s important to me that a beef stew looks good as well as tastes good- I like it nice and dark- I know it seems silly but it matters to me! This experimental version was very nice, and the whole family enjoyed it which is always a bonus!
If you are on Slimming World you could easily make this much lower syn by missing out the oil and flour- you don’t need to pre-cook the meat, I just think it comes out nicer this way, and the flour thickens the sauce but it still tastes good without!
Rosemary and garlic beef stew
Ingredients
- 800 g stewing/casserole beef lean
- 2 onions
- 3 sticks celery
- 2 parsnips
- 2 carrots
- 4 cloves garlic
- 2 tbsp plain flour
- 1 tbsp rapeseed oil
- 2 tbsp dijon mustard
- 500 ml beef stock
- 1 tbsp worcestershire sauce
- 1 tbsp dark soy sauce
- 1 tbsp dried rosemary
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- 2 tbsp tomato puree
- salt and pepper
Instructions
- Peel the carrots and parsnips, and remove the skins from the onions.
- Pop onions, celery, carrot and parsnips into a food processor and chop finely (you can do this by hand, especially if you prefer chunkier veg- but I wanted mine to be small to thicken the sauce and appeal to the children!)
- Coat the casserole steak with the flour, and season with salt and pepper. Crush the garlic cloves.
- Heat the oil in a large, non-stick pan, and throw in the garlic. Cook for about 20 seconds, and then add in the beef. Stir around, and then leave to cook for about 3 minutes.
- Stir again, and cook on a high heat for another 3 minutes.
- Put the chopped veg into the slow cooker bowl, and add in the beef.
- Mix together the mustard, worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, rosemary and thyme with a few tablespoons of the beef stock
- Put the used beef pan back on the heat, and add the stock and sauce mix. Stir well, scraping away any residue left on the bottom of the pan.
- Add the sauce into the slow cooker, stir well, and cook on high for 4-6 hours, or on low for 8-12 hours.
