One Pot Chef Slow Cooker Beef Stew

Source video by OnePotChefShow on YouTube. This recipe was adapted with strict source-fidelity rules.

One Pot Chef has been perfecting this slow cooker beef stew for over a decade and his pitch is firm: don't brown the meat. Beef cheeks are a cheap, fatty cut that dissolve into tender shreds over a long low cook, and browning toughens them and dries them out. Instead the meat goes into a Ziploc with seasoned flour, gets coated, and lands straight in the pot with the vegetables. His secret ingredient is a tablespoon of smoked paprika, almost bacony in the finished stew. Everything cooks for 8 hours on low (he's emphatic: no high setting, you lose the meat texture), then a couple of cups of frozen peas go in for the last 30 minutes. The flour thickens the stock into a proper gravy by the end.

Ingredients

• 0.5 cupplain flour
• fine salt, for seasoning the flour
• black pepper, freshly ground
• 1 kgbeef cheeks, trimmed of heavy sinew, cut into 4-5 cm chunks

• 4 potatoesred potatoes, diced into 2-3 cm chunks
• 3 carrotscarrots, peeled and chopped into 2 cm pieces
• 1 onionsmall brown onion, diced
• 2 stalkscelery stalks, diced
• garlic cloves (crushed), crushed

• 2 tbsptomato paste (concentrated tomato puree)
• 1 tbspsmoked paprika
• 1 litreliquid beef stock
• 1.5 tbspWorcestershire sauce

• 2 cupsfrozen peas (add late)

Method

1. Put the plain flour, a good pinch of salt and a good crack of black pepper into a large Ziploc bag. Seal and shake to combine.

   ~1 min

2. Add the beef cheek chunks to the bag, seal, and toss until every piece is coated with the seasoned flour. Set aside.

   ~2 min

3. Into the slow cooker, tip the diced red potatoes, carrots, onion and celery.

   ~2 min

4. Add the crushed garlic, the 2 tbsp tomato paste and the 1 tbsp smoked paprika. Give a good twist of black pepper. Add the floured beef cheeks straight on top.

   ~2 min

5. Pour over the 1 litre liquid beef stock and the 1.5 tbsp Worcestershire sauce. Give everything a final stir.

   ~1 min

6. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours. Do not use the high setting.

   ~480 min

7. In the last 30 minutes, stir in the frozen peas. Replace the lid.

   ~30 min

8. Serve in deep bowls with crusty bread to mop up the gravy. The meat should fall apart at the touch of a spoon and the sauce should be thick and gravy-like.

   ~2 min

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