We think they're perfect but we do 1" chunks and whole new potatoes. Not too much salt if you consider most people put a teaspoon of salt in for the veggies anyway. It's to your own taste. We often add more carrots in a day or 2 to bulk it up and make another meal + anything else you fancy & another oxo or 2. :smiley:

Agreed the veg half way through other wise they will loose their firmness,

Picked up a kilo. Made some Rick Stein Madras form his recent book. Mmmmmm. Tonight the rest will be Beef Ragu......HEAT added.

Oh, and a possible helpful tip - do not fry with virgin olive oil, it goes carcinogenic. I use rapeseed oil and butter mixed...crisp n dry veg oil is actually rapeseed oil...check the label..

500g mince beef 10% max fat £2 in iceland - this isn't anything amazing

This is shin of beef - at least in my local - just bought a whole one.

chocci Avatar
chocci2
Do you just cook the beef in it on its own with some water for 15 minutes to tenderise it before making a stew with it in the oven? I have a pressure cooker but rarely gets used apart from making curry gravy every six months. Bought a halogen oven recently and my main oven barely gets used now.

You can do a whole stew in the pressure cooker, no need to use your oven. I just bought a 6lt electric pressure cooker as my 60yr old inherited Prestige was collecting all the meat on the bottom & charring it. OMG it's SO quiet!
I put 1kg carrots, 2 large onions, tin tomatoes, tin tomato puree, 3 Parsnips, 4-6 Oxo & a tablespoon of cornflour in water + the beef in cubes,added water to just below top veggies. Left it to go for 30mins as it was at max & it was delicious. You can add beans or other things if you like - we just love carrots in a stew.

Stewing beef - the 'proper' best tasting beef to use is 'shin beef'. Often stewing beef isn't shin beef. Shin beef tastes way better than something that isn't shin.

It depends on whether or not you blast the stuff! I worked in Spain for several years and that is where I started using olive oil, which they use for everything (at home, not cheap restaurants). I do the onions their way- shallow fry gently until softened a bit, put on a lid and let they stand for 10 mins during which time they soften with the steam/moisture, I then reheat and throw the other stuff in there.

I am a chemist by profession and analysed virgin olive oil 3-4 years ago during some research. I also checked it after heating gently as per the above and found no significant differences though I'm sure that it would be different in an over at 200c. Going to stick with using it.

Are you saying thay a frying pan doent reach the temperatures of roasting?
Use rapeseed oil for frying, it remains stable at high temperatures.
Oliuve oil loses all its health benefits when heated - as well as becoming unstable.

Like to fry the onions in that- for spaghetti sauces etc it adds flavour. Rubbish about cooking in virgin oil, just don't do it too hot (ie, don't roast in it- use refined for that).

I would have suggested you lightly flour & season the stew & quickly brown in a very hot frying pan & then add to the slow cooker.That way you'll not need cornflour & I would replace the oxo with Knorr beef bouillon as oxo has such a high salt taste/level is kills the dish.Even a little red wine,carrots,shallots & tomato puree added, turns this dish in to a Beef bourguignon.

Why replace with olive oil ?
No oil/fat is better & does not require olive oil being added.

Do you just cook the beef in it on its own with some water for 15 minutes to tenderise it before making a stew with it in the oven? I have a pressure cooker but rarely gets used apart from making curry gravy every six months. Bought a halogen oven recently and my main oven barely gets used now.

15 minutes in the pressure cooker.

Had this for tea tonight, made a beef and vegetable stew in the slow cooker with dumplings - it was lovely! Heat added OP, great price for this at the moment xxx

you can get the vegetarian non meat fat version, its still fattening but not animal hard fat, it still makes lovely dumplings.

Did you make any into mince? I got a meat grinder gathering dust and fancied trying it out.

Throw a couple of dumplings in and I'll be round for dinner :-)

good find op, heat added

Will get some for the dogs at this price, its cheaper than dog treats!

That's right, and the Finest was also reduced by £2, but the fat content is 15% for normal and 12% for Finest so not much difference anyway. For anything over 5% fat I always brown and then drain it as much as possible and replace by olive oil.

Just thrown the carrots in- be perfect in 3h

Had some today - very nice beef stew.