Fear Not the Slow Cooker

Why? Because it serves nobly in the creation of Irish Guinness Stew, which is delicious, if not the easiest dinner you can whip together once the weather starts turning crummy. Guinness Stew is a great example of what I like to call "garbage cooking". That's not a slur upon its content or nutritional value, but rather, a reference to the anything-goes style of ingredient gathering that precedes making it. Furthermore, the slow cooker really does most of the legwork—the human participant is much more the robot-monkey-arm in this case, since his/her primary duty is to simply dump everything into the cooker and flick the power on. After that's done with, the chef has a good 7 or 8 hours to wander away from the kitchen, take a nap, download pornography, or watch the Harry Potter movies in any desired order.

I always thought of slow-cookers as the province of 1970s housewives—those whose only method of culinary recourse was to boil an assortment of meats and vegetables into a lifeless paste, spoon the sad mixture into a serving bowl, and then string up the "Mission Accomplished" banner over the mantle. Well, maybe that was the case a long time ago, but ever since we inherited a brand new slow cooker from a friend who'd convinced herself that it would burn down her building, my tune has changed considerably. If you've got a slow cooker taking up space in your pantry which you have yet to fool around with, allow me to recommend this incredibly easy means by which to christen it. And seriously, this barely even counts as cooking. Irish Guinness Stew takes about as much effort to make as getting up at 4 AM to go take a leak does. How's that for an enticing visual to point you towards the kitchen?

Here's what you need:

1.5 - 2 pound package of cubed beef for stew.
1 bag of baby carrots
1 onion, quartered and separated
2-3 cloves minced garlic
1 or 2 potatoes. Maybe 1 potato and one yam, just for variety's sake and because Autumn started yesterday while you weren't paying attention.
1 package frozen peas
1 32 oz. container of good beef stock. I recommend the Trader Joe's brand, but College Inn works fine, too.
1 can of Guinness draught beer
1 small can of tomato paste
brown sugar
2 bay leaves
red wine
flour
butter
olive oil
salt & pepper
Worcestershire Sauce
fresh sprig rosemary
fresh sprig thyme

1. In a big skillet, heat up some olive oil with a shnick of butter. When that's hot, cook up the onion and garlic with a little bit of brown sugar (1-2 tsp). Keep the flame low, and keep stirring everything around, so the sugar doesn't burn. Cook for 5 minutes, then scrape all contents into your slow cooker.
2. In a mixing bowl, douse your cubed beef with some salt, pepper, and flour. Coat well, and then brown it all up evenly (another five minutes) in the dirty skillet you just used. (Add more olive oil, obviously, so it doesn't stick.) Just as it's finishing up, throw a splash of red wine into the hot pan and scrape off all the deliciously crusty bits that have formed. Scrape everything into the slow cooker. (Note: From here on out, the robot-monkey-arm I mentioned above takes over. Feel free to take all your clothes off, tie one arm behind your back, or recite favorite movie dialogs while you tackle the remaining steps, which are ridiculously easy.)
3. To the slow cooker, add the following: 2/3 bag of baby carrots, several splashes of Worcestershire Sauce, the beef stock, the can of Guinness, tomato paste, bay leaves, and mix well. Top with the rosemary and thyme. Cover. Dial up "low" on your slow cooker. Wash dirty skillet.
4. Five hours later, wander back into the kitchen, which by now should be smelling pretty fantastic. Dice up your potato and/or yam into small cubes. Add them to the slow cooker, along with the frozen peas, some salt and pepper to taste, and let cook for another two hours. If you're feeling anxious, you can bump the heat up to "high", but patience will yield the greatest results.
5. Boil some egg noodles, rice, quinoa, couscous, or whatever starch/grain you're feeling the most attracted to, and serve it up with steamy helpings of stew. Crack open another Guinness and celebrate your Celtic heritage, even if you don't have any. If necessary, crank up the Irish hip-hop genius of Krisma and Sinisista to enhance the fantasy.
   

P.S. I realize one can achieve the same effect by using a big stock pot with a low flame underneath it. But a live flame requires more careful attention. Not to mention that instructing you thusly would've ruined the rare opportunity to scatter leaves on my slow cooker for a backyard photo shoot.

Comments

[katybobaty]

I was afraid I would get all the way to the end of this post without finding out for certain whether or not you actually took your slow cooker outside and sprinkled leaves on it.