Crockpot Beef Goulash

If it wouldn’t be for me on insisting on completely caramelizing 3 large onions, this meal would need only about 10 minutes of work before slow cooker takes over. To slowly caramelize that many onions takes about half an hour but, is it ever worth it! This recipe is quite simple.

Since I was planning on leftovers for freezing I used:

Ingredients:

3 Lb of beef shank with bones and marrow

3 large or 5 medium onions, roughly chopped

1 carrot, peeled and chopped

5 cloves of garlic, chopped

2 Tbs. sweet Hungarian paprika

1 Tbs. hot Hungarian paprika

1 cup dry red wine

1 24 oz. can crushed tomatoes

2 Tbs. oil

Flour for dusting beef

Salt and pepper

Direction:

Coat beef in flour, salt and pepper.

Put 1 cup of crushed tomatoes in Crockpot and turn on High - 4 hours.

Heat a heavy frying pan with 1 Tbs. of oil on medium high heat.

Brown the beef pieces on all sides in batches and move them to Crockpot.

When all the meat is browned remove oil leaving only thin film.

Add 1 Tbs. of oil and return to heat

Cook onions on medium heat till golden brown, about 30 minutes.

Add sweet and hot paprika and cook till fragrant, about 3 minutes.

Add carrots and cook till soft.

Scrape content of frying pan into Crockpot.

Deglaze the pan with wine and reduce until only about 2 Tbs. of liquid remains.

Scrape into Crock pot.

Reheat the frying pan again and bring tomatoes to boil.

Transfer tomatoes to Crockpot, turn the heat control to low 8 hours and relax.

When done, remove the bones.

As with almost any other stew, this one is better next day.

Serve with potatoes, pasta or dumplings (my preference).

Note: For richer taste you can add chopped green and red peppers and sliced cremini mushrooms about an hour before the end of cooking time.

Veal Ragout with Mushrooms and Noodles

This is one of my favorite dishes since my childhood in Czech Republic and it is a regional specialty. Just like so many ragouts and stews it is better next day after all flavors have combined. This is my slow cooking, no-worry version.

To serve 4

2 Lb. veal shoulder chops, deboned and cut into 1” cubes

3 cups sliced Cremini or Button mushrooms

1 onion, chopped

3 T. butter

2 T. flour

½ cup veal or chicken stock – mushrooms will release lot of liquid

Salt

Pepper

Preheat oven to 220 °C.

Sprinkle the veal with salt and pepper. Melt butter in dutch oven over medium heat and when the foam subsides, add onions and cook until translucent, 6 – 8 minutes. Stir in the veal cubes till meat changes color, sprinkle with caraway seeds and flour and stir to coat meat evenly. Cover tightly and cook over very low heat for 10 minutes, shaking the pan now and then to prevent sticking.

Stir in stock, add mushrooms and stir till well mixed. Bring to simmer and place on middle rack in preheated oven and braise for 2 hours. This allows for the collagen of the connective tissues to melt into gelatin, while keeping the drying up of the muscle fibers at a minimum. After 2 hours raise temperature to 275°C for another hour. After 3 hours in the oven start checking for doneness  (sharp tip of a knife should go in without resistance). At this time you can start boiling water for noodles.

When meat is done, remove from oven and let rest so that meat will reabsorb some of the juices. Boil noodles, drain, toss in butter and keep warm.

Of course, this ragout can be cooked on a stove top at very low heat but it will have to be stirred every 15 – 20 minutes for 3 hours.

All done! Serve with buttered wide noodles. 

Stir in the veal cubes till meat changes color, sprinkle with caraway seeds and flour and stir to coat meat evenly.

Stir in stock, add mushrooms and stir till well mixed.

3 hours plus later...

All done.

 Note: It is very difficult to photograph and plate stew, any stew. It is not a pretty meal regardless of how great it tastes. I did my best with my $150 Canon point-and-shoot camera. Also, for garnish I used parsley from my garden. I am sad to say that they were the last leaves left. I still have plenty of arugula but no parsley.

Arugula in cold frame.