Slow Cooked Guinness Beef stew with mustard and herb dumplings
Ingredients:
750g Braising beef and any fat discarded – cubed
1 large brown onion – diced
3 garlic cloves – minced
2 tablespoons of plain flour
300ml Guinness
300ml beef stock
2 tablespoon of Worcester OR soy sauce
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2 Bay leaves
5 carrots – peeled & halved
2 stalks of celery – diced
6 mushrooms – sliced
Salt and pepper
Olive oil
For the Dumplings
150g self raising flour
75g shredded suet
3 teaspoons of mustard powder
Handful of chopped Parsley
Handful of grated parmesan
Salt and pepper
5-7 tablespoons of water
Slow Cooked Guinness Beef Stew
Method:
Heat olive oil in a frying pan and add the cubes of beef. Fry over a high heat until they begin to brown, then add the onion and celery, and fry for 5 minutes.
Stir in garlic and flour, then gradually mix in the Guinness and stock. Add the tomato paste, bay leaves, Worcester sauce or soy sauce and season to taste with salt & pepper. Bring to boil and transfer to the slow cooker and cook on LOW for 7 hours. Do not take the lid off as this makes the stew watery.
Stir the stew, put the slow cooker on HIGH and add the carrot halves and mushrooms and cook for a further 1 hour.
Meanwhile, make the dumplings, add all the ingredients together in a bowl, and make into 8 balls.
Finally, remove the Bay leaves and place the dumplings balls on top, with the slow cooker lid on and cook for 1 hour. The slow cooker should still be on HIGH.
The total cooking time for this stew is 9 hours but it is totally worth the wait.
Once finished I put the slow cooker pot under the grill without the lid on for 10 minutes so the dumplings have a crispy top.
Serve with sprinkled Parsley.
Enjoy!
Serves 4