Great Goodness Guinness Beef Stew

 

A beef stew as good as they serve at the Tower Bank Arms? Possible? Ehm, well this is made with a can of Guinness not Brodies Prime, so maybe not. But it's an excellent slowcooker dish that will greet you with a lovely aroma when you come home.

When I do slowcooker recipes I cook the dish partway, so I always fry off onions, carrots, brown meat etc, bring the stew to simmer and then switch off. Remembering to switch it on again in the morning...

So this stew - start off with diced smoked back bacon, cook till browned and has released it's fat, remove. Add seasoned beef and brown - I mean caramalise, the chunks of meat want to have lots of brown bits, that's called flavour, remove. Add a diced onion and continue to fry till almost clear, add diced carrots and diced parsnips, stir around for a few minutes, then add the meat and bacon back in, add a tin of Guinness and lob in some thyme, and half a mug of passata, and a mug of chicken stock. Bring to a simmer and add sliced mushrooms. Then switch off and transfer to the crock pot. Write a note to remind you to switch it in the morning.