Alison Taffe: Okay so now
we'll move onto our beef ragout.
I'm going to fry off my meat
and vegetables first for my ragout
mostly because I just want to get
some more flavour into that stew if I can.
Some slow cookers on the market today
have a browning setting just like my pressure cooker did
so that way you can fry the meat first
and then switch it to slow cook
and you get that extra benefit of the extra flavour
from the meat and vegetables.
Just a little splash of oil
not too much
I'm using a non stick pan.
But I do want to fry the meat first
so I can set the colours
the flavours
and also the shape of the meat.
So let's take a little bit
of our diced chuck steak.
As I said chuck steak or blade
makes a fabulous piece of meat
for slow cooking
as does shoulder which is blade in beef
but shoulder of lamb is perfect as well.
And also you could use topside
and if all else fails you can use rump
but it is a little bit too expensive
for this dish.
We're trying to keep economy of costs
but also maximum flavour
so those different older cuts of meat
those styles of secondary meats
are perfect for us in this one.
And they're cheaper.
So I'm just going to get that meat frying
away in the pan
and while I'm waiting for that to heat up nicely
I'm going to cut my carrots
my celery and my onion.
You can see I've cut some little dice here
so just a little nice
little neat dice
bearing in mind that we're going to stew this
or slow cook this for about four or five hours
or as I said pressure cook in about 10 minutes.
In the oven it takes about two hours.
So we don't want our vegetables too small
because that way they're going to break up.
What I suggest you do is cut your carrot in half
cut in half again
cut in quarter
in quarter
and then just dice
easy like that.
I'm sure you can do that
it's pretty simple, right?
And if the carrot is small
you don't need to cut it in half again
you just cut it just like that.
So I say dice but basically small pieces
that are all even in size
is what you want for this stew.
With the celery
I'd probably cut that down in half again
and possibly even one more
because it's quite big
and then cut those into nice little dices again.
But just be careful
one thing I will say to you
it's not so much about the shape
it's the size.
You've got to make sure
that all the vegetables are the same size
likewise the meat
because if not one piece of meat
will be cooked
one piece of meat will be tough.
The same with vegetables.
Now with onions
you can afford to go a bit bolder
cut those a little bit bigger
go maybe four or five cuts across
and then one cut down
and then flip him over
and cut one safe at the end.
Now the reason I can cut that a bit chunkier
is because the onion is going to break up
and I pretty much need nice big pieces of onion
to match the celery
and carrot that I have there.
So the other beautiful ingredients in this one
are going to include some Italian herbs
and also some beef stock
and some crushed tomatoes.
Okay so I've got the frying pan on
a tiny little bit of vegetable oil.
I'm just going to add
my diced meat now to a hot pan
hear that sizzle
I'm going to just fry it up a little bit first
just to set the colours and flavours in.
And honestly you will find
that you will get a beautiful flavour
from your slow cooker if you do this.
But likewise you can just pop it all in the pan
the slow cooking pan
put all the ingredients in
shut the lid and turn it on for six hours.
My sister does it all the time
and the boys love it
her husband loves it
so you know if you're time poor
you can do it a quicker way than this.
I just tend to like to
do this old fashioned way of frying the meat first.
Alright just while I'm frying the meat
I'm just going to crush myself
up a little bit of garlic
just flatten more garlic on the board
with your knife and just with the blade away
from you so you're not cutting yourself
just give it a bit of a squash
and then just run a knife over.
A little bit of garlic in here will be beautiful.
I'm going to use garlic and bay leaves
on this one and a little bit of Italian herbs as well.
So nice little chopped garlic there
not too small we don't want that to burn
we fry it up a bit.
Perfect. Alright.
Basically just going to get that to seal
and once that's sealed
I'm going to pop that in the slow cooker
with all the veg.
I've got my carrots
my celery my onions
and a couple of bay leaves.
I'm also going to use a little bit
of my Italian herb mix there as well.
So once that's all fried up and sealed
pop a few Italian herbs on that
while that's just frying there.
And once again
don't panic about the recipes
you can always go to the Smart Choices website
and download all of the ingredients
and all of the methods.
I'm sure you'll find exactly what you're looking for
and you'll go through this
and you'll remember it because you've seen it
and then you think yep
okay now I know.
So with this one
as much flavour as you can going in at the beginning.
And then the process of slow cooking
is a process of stewing
which pretty much changes the meat texture
so it's more palatable
it's tender
and bags of flavour goes into the sauce
so we want to try and keep all that into the pan if we can.
So now that's sealed nicely
we're going to pop that into our slow cooker
with all the juices as well
we don't want to lose any of that.
So we're not losing
any of that lovely juice at the beginning.
Just turn my stove off.
I'm going to pop my garlic in there now.
A couple of bay leaves
fresh is best but you know what
you can get dried bay leaves in the supermarket
and they're just as good.
So fresh is always best of course.
Pop those in
add your diced carrots in there
your beautiful diced celery
that you've already cut up
lots of lovely flavours
and some diced onions
good couple of handfuls of onions going in there.
Now the liquid
we all need a bit of liquid in the shoes
the meat is not going to slow cook on its own.
We need liquid around it
so it's moist while it's cooking.
I'm going to add a little bit of crushed tomatoes
and a little bit of beef stock.
Now I'm using convenience beef stock
because I figure not all of you are going to be making
an eight hour beef stock in your kitchen
and that's fair enough.
I don't even do that at home either.
So buy a low sodium stock
and if you're frightened about
whether it's got a lot of sauce in it
just use some water it's fine.
Okay a little bit of paprika in there for colour as well
just mix that through.
And a whole can of tomatoes
going in the slow cooker.
And then a little bit of stock
but if you're not sure about whether you've got fresh stock
or whether you want to use any kind of stock
you could just use water.
If you're going to use stock
use one with low salt.
So just swill out that can of tomatoes
get the extra little bit of tomatoes that's in there
pop it in
or alternatively you can just use water
it's fine.
Just need a little bit of extra moisture in there
just stir that around.
Beautiful.
And pop the lid on and have a cup of tea
put your feet up
because it's going to take four to six hours
in the slow cooker.
So get this one on early
So get this one on early girls and boys.
Okay so let's have a look
at how our ragout is doing
it's been cooking away there in our slow cooker
for around about four or five hours.
Just make sure that the meat is tender
that's the most important thing.
Like I said before
if the meat is tender
then you know that the carrots
and the celery and the onions
are going to be tender as well.
Oh yeah beautiful.
It's a lovely taste of Italy in there
with the Italian herbs and some garlic and tomatoes
beautiful.
Pop a little bit of season in at the end.
We're only going to get the real taste
at the end of the cooking process
so I suggest you cook it all
with a very small amount of seasoning
and then just adjust it at the end
like with everything.
Beautiful.
Okay what we're going to do
is serve this one up
with a little bit of buttered pasta
so we get a little bit of carbohydrate
into our lunch as well.
I've got some fettuccine here.
I've precooked the fettuccini
I've just boiled it
and what I've done is
just rinsed it off with a little bit of boiling water
and run a little bit of oil through it
so that it can stay a little bit slippery
so it's not just all coming together
and sticking and looking rather
rather stodgy which is not what we want.
So just warm it through
and a little bit of oil is great
as I said pop a little bit of this lovely ragout
it's fabulous
it's got all the colours still there
the tomatoes the carrots
are still bright orange
we've got the celery
and the onions in there
making this an absolute flavour punching dish for lunch.
The kids are going to love this.
It's made with love.
So not only has it got beautiful ingredients.
we've made it with a bit of love.
And we love our tuckshops
right
so hopefully the kids are going to absolutely love this.
So pop the lid on.
You could keep that warm
in the hot box if you want
or you could keep it warm in your slow cooker
and you could keep your noodles warm
somewhere else it's entirely up to you.
So cooking with some fresh ingredients
is a great way of greening up your tuckshop menus.
And it also promotes smart
healthy choices through your school.
So I hope with the help of a slow cooker
and a pressure cooker
you too can make these beautiful casseroles
and stews for winter
and your kids are going to have a great time.
Thanks ever so much for watching.
I'm Alison Taafe
the Sassy Chef signing off.
I love my tuckshop and hope you do too.
Thanks.