Earth Mother meets Gadget Queen

It's so cold today I wanted to cook a healthy, wholesome and most importantly warming meal so I turned to my trusty slow cooker and chose to make a Hungarian beef goulash. As usual I used a variety of recipes (some for slow cooker, some for normal cooking in the oven) and just picked the bits/ingredients I fancied and hoped the outcome would be good. The main recipe I used was from the Waitrose website but it was for conventional oven so I did my best to adapt it for the slow cooker as well as adding a tin of chopped tomatoes, red wine (of course!), a couple of carrots and a stray parsnip I found lurking in the fridge. You'll find the recipe below or at least my best guess at what I think I did.

Once all the ingredients were doing their thing in the slow cooker I felt somewhat inspired to revive another kitchen gadget hiding in the bottom of a cupboard and I got the bread machine out! 3 hours or so later and we have all just enjoyed the wonderful goulash, buttery tagliatelle and delicious French bread - crusty on the outside and still warm on the inside. Fantastic!

Alison’s Hungarian Beef Goulash for the Slow Cooker

Serves: 4

Ingredients

Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp plain flour
500g Aberdeen Angus Diced Steak
2 tbsp olive oil
25g butter
1 large onion, thinly sliced
2 carrots (feel free to add other similar veg you want to use up)

185g jar Dantza Pimientos del Piquillo, chopped up (sort of)
400g tin chopped tomatoes

2 tsp Paprika
200ml beef stock

200ml red wine
Sour Cream

Method

1.     Season the flour and use to coat the beef. Heat the oil and butter in a pan and fry the beef in batches until the outside is sealed and browned. Use a slotted spoon to remove the beef to a plate and set aside.

2.     Return the pan to the heat and fry the onions and carrots gently for 4-5 minutes or until golden brown. Add the pimientos and continue to cook for 5 minutes. Stir in the paprika, cook for 1 minute, then pour in the stock and chopped tomatoes.

4.     Return the beef to the pot, pour in the wine, stir to combine all ingredients and bring to the boil. Transfer to slow cooker and cook on low for 5 – 6 hours.

5.     Stir in the soured cream and serve with buttered tagliatelle.