I finally had a chance to use my new slow cooker! It was a gift of my husband for my birthday and since then, I was thinking what is the best recipe to inaugurate my new baby in the kitchen.
So I tried googling and found quite plenty of very appetizing recipes. I decided to try it first with a beef recipe to know exactly its capacity to soften tough meat. My husband requested for Caldereta (Beef Stew). I found different recipes and procedures online but as I wanted it to taste more like our own version of Caldereta, I added some twist to the usual beef stew recipes.
When I was reading procedures about how long it usually take to fully soften the beef meat using slow cooker, I thought it is quite long hours and too much to do. But then I realized, since I am more into multi-tasking, I could prepare lunch and dinner at the same time. Well, I could prepare lunch and prepare also the things for the slow cooker. Then just set my slow cooker after eating lunch and have a good rest. That will be just perfectly ready by dinner time :)
Well, any way, here's my version of Caldereta using slow cooker. It only took me 10 minutes to prepare everything before setting it into the slow cooker, yeah, that easy.
Ingredients:
- 1 Kg Beef Brisket cut into 6 cubes
- 2 medium sized potatoes - cut into cubes 2"x2"
- 2 medium sized carrots - sliced about 1" thickness
- 1 medium sized green bell pepper - cut in cubes
- 1 large sized onion - cut in cubes
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic
- 3 tablespoon tomato paste
- 1 small can liver spread
- 1 tablespoon margarine
- 2 1/2 cups beef broth
- salt
- pepper
- ground dried basil (optional)
- oil
Procedure:
- Season beef with salt and pepper.
- Heat 3 tablespoons of the oil in a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat.
- Add the beef and cook until it begins to brown, about 3 minutes. Remove from skillet, set aside and drain the excess oil.
- Lightly pan fry the potatoes and carrots. Remove from heat and set aside.
- Heat a casserole with 1 tablespoon oil and saute garlic and onion.
- Add the beef broth and tomato paste.
- Mix in the liver spread and margarine.
- Season with salt and pepper. Let it boil for a minute. Set aside.
- Put the beef, potatoes, carrots and green bell pepper into the slow cooker.
- Season with dried ground basil.
- Pour in the broth mixture.
- Cover the slow cooker and cook in high for 5 hours.
- Serve and enjoy!
