Easy Beef Stew

We had a still-slightly-frozen boneless beef chuck roast, and we wanted a substantial but bother-free dinner by evening.

Easy Beef Stew in a Slow Cooker

Recipe

Cut the roast into 4 pieces and push them all into a 2-quart crockpot with no other ingredients.  Meat in a crockpot normally produces so much liquid that water is not needed.

Start cooking on "high", and when it is bubbling, turn it to low.  Allow to simmer through the day.

About an hour before dinner, start some rice.

Then remove 1/3 of the cooked beef and drippings from the slow cooker to save for another use.  Cut the remainder of the beef into bite-sized chunks and returned to the pot. Turn it up to "high".

Add:

2 small cans of mushrooms with their juice
1 onion, chopped and sauteed

Then saute in a pan:

1 Tb oil
1 Tb rice flour

When it is honey-colored, stir in:

1 tsp paprika

and immediately begin to spoon liquid from the crockpot into the pan, stirring out the lumps.  When you have a thick, bubbling sauce, scrape it into the crockpot and gently stir.  Allow it to simmer on "low" for 15 minutes or more.

Optionally, a small amount of vegetables can be added, primarily for color.  Green peas, carrot shreds, or mini-peppers in red or gold would work well.  We added 1/4 cup of fried okra that we happened to have on hand.  Okra adds a unique slippery kind of thickening most familiar to us in gumbo.

Easy beef stew served over rice

Note that this stew has a reddish color that in most cuisines is produced by tomatoes.  However what we have here is not tomato but paprika, a Hungarian - Balkan technique that produces an entirely different and characteristic flavor.

Season to taste.  Served over medium-grain white rice.

To see a full set of photographs showing how this dish was made, go to this set on flickr.   (It will open in a new tab or window; to return to this page, just close it.) The small pictures are thumbnails; click on each one to see it full-size, and to read the comments under it.  If you prefer to use the slideshow feature, you won't see the captions unless you click on "show info" (top right).

This recipe is #79 in the Baker's Dozen Challenge Countdown.

Gluten-free Roux

Gluten-free roux made from rice flour, vegetable oil, and paprika.

"Roux" is the brown sauce that is used to thicken gumbo and other dishes typical of New Orleans.  Normally it is made with white wheat flour.  We have made a gluten-free version with rice flour, and have heightened the flavor with browned paprika.

Gluten-free roux just started

3/8 c. flour
2/8 c. oil
1 Tb. paprika
2 cups chicken stock (or water)

Mix oil and flour in a frying pan and brown over medium heat, stirring.  Brown the rice flour to medium honey shade - not as dark as you would brown wheat flour for roux.  Do it slowly, stirring, so as not to scorch.

Add paprika, stirring vigorously.  The paprika will immediately turn dark brown.  Liquid must now be added to stop the paprika from browning any more.

Add stock or water 1/2 c. at a time, stirring.  Lower heat.

Stir constantly while slowly adding liquid to prevent lumps.

When all the liquid is added, bring it slowly to a boil and cook, stirring, until the mixture is well thickened.

When it is done, the roux will be very thick.  It is now ready to be added to a recipe.

Roux, not quite done yet

Roux can be packaged in convenient quantities and stored in the freezer.

To see a full set of photographs showing how this dish was made, go to this set on flickr.   (It will open in a new tab or window; to return to this page, just close it.) The small pictures are thumbnails; click on each one to see it full-size, and to read the comments under it.  If you prefer to use the slideshow feature, you won't see the captions unless you click on "show info" (top right).