Slow cooker beef bowl

"Beefy"

It’s the last recipe of the month. Next month will be all about pumpkins. For this last recipe I wanted to do a simple enough recipe, very hands off, something you can set in the night or before you head off to work and then have ready when you get home or wake up. If you don’t have a slow cooker it’s something I would recommend.

I recently got a pressure cooker that has so many amazing settings. It can cook rice, steam, warm, pressure cook, slow cook. This is the first time I am trying the slow cooker function on it. I didn’t realize that the slow cooker was a standard low setting 185 degrees according to the manual. So after three hours when the beef didn’t budge I was shocked to say the least.  This means for a tough cut of beef it’s going to take around 8 hours to become tender, mine took about 9.5 because I kept opening it and checking on it. However don’t let the time deter you, it also means that you will end up with the most perfectly tender meat possible.

I didn’t realize how much better the slow cooker function is than the pressure cooking function. It keeps a constant low temperature on the meat and it dissolves the fat and melts connective tissue so the meat slides apart like butter. In my opinion it also intensifies the flavor, especially the flavor of beef which can be incredible with a high quality grass fed animal. I highly doubt that my beef was grass fed and on a quality scale of 1 to 10 probably a 7 and it was divine. So I can only imagine if it were better.

I decided that I wanted a whole bunch of flavors happening with this stew. I could have easily added carrots, dumplings, beans  etc. to the stew, and made a typical Jamaican beef stew, but that’s been done. It’s very rare when someone takes essentially Jamaican stew beef and top it with chimichurri and toasted sesame seeds. So of course, that what I did. I didn’t bother posting the chimichurri recipe on here because the internet has a plethora of choices when it comes to this sauce. I used scotch bonnet pepper in mine instead of chili or jalapeno. I added toasted sesame seeds, some avocado slices, and fresh scallion greens. Before I dug in I squeezed the juice of the lime all over the plate and mixed it all up. The flavor of the lime, the herbs and acidity from the chimichurri the sweet salty from the beef and the rice as the perfect vehicle. Very unconventional way to eat a bowl of Jamaican stew beef. But it is delicious none the less.

P.S. If you don’t have a slow cooker you can certainly set your oven to 185 and leave it for 8 to 9 hours.

Ingredients (printable recipe)

4-5 lb boneless or bone in beef stew meat

2 teaspoons Salt

½ teaspoon sugar

½ teaspoon Black pepper

1 tablespoon Onion powder

1 tablespoon Thyme

3 stalks Scallion chopped

1 tablespoon Allspice

1 tablespoon Smoked paprika

3 tablespoon coconut oil

3 cups Water

1 Sweet pepper

1 large onion

Optional toppings

Chimichurri  (google a good recipe)

Avocado

Toasted sesame seeds

White rice

Lime wedges

Instructions

• Season beef with salt, sugar, black pepper, onion powder, thyme, scallion, allspice and smoked paprika
• Heat oil and sear the meat making sure its browned on all sides.
• Place in a slow cooker with water, sweet peppers and onions
• Allow it to cook on low for 8 hours or until tender
• Once the meat is tender skim off all the fat that has settled on the top reduce the remaining sauce to a thick gravy
• Season to taste with salt and pepper once the gravy has reduced (if you season it too early the reduces sauce will be too salty)
• Assemble the bowl with rice, beef, avocados, toasted sesame seeds, chimichurri, and lime wedges

Xoxo Greedygirl