Hungarian Smoked Beef Braise

From Slow Cooker: The Best Cookbook Ever by Diane Phillips (page 186)

You can see my blog post about this cook book here.

Serves 8

Ingredients:

6 medium Yukon gold or red potatoes, quartered
4 medium carrots, cut into 1-inch lengths
2 teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 strips thick-cut bacon, cut into ½ - inch pieces
3 medium onions, cut into half rounds*
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
2 chipotle chiles in adobo, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup all-purpose flour
3 ½ - 4 pounds beef chuck, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 tablespoons (plus some extra) canola or vegetable oil
One 14-15 ounce can chopped tomatoes, with juice
Once 12 ounce bottle Guinness or dark ale**

* For the onions, I saw this “cut into half rounds” description a couple of times in the book. As near as I can tell, this means to cut the onion in half lengthwise and then slice (so that the layers of the onion make a rainbow type pattern when sliced).

** We don’t normally have Guinness beer in our house. But, being a good Texan, I do quite often have Shiner Bock. The Shiner Bock worked great in this recipe.

You will also need:

Large skillet
1 gallon sized zip top baggie
5-7 quart slow cooker

Method:

Arrange the potatoes, carrots, 1 teaspoon of the salt and the pepper in the insert of the slow cooker and stir to combine. Cook the bacon in a large skillet over medium heat until crisp.

Transfer the bacon to the slow-cooker insert and remove all but 3 tablespoons of fat from the pan. Heat the remaining fat in the pan over medium-high heat. Add the onions, paprika, chiles, and garlic and sauté until the onions begin to soften ( 4-5 minutes).

Transfer the mixture to the slow-cooker insert. Put the flour and the remaining 1 teaspoon of salt in the zip top baggie. Put the meat in the flour, toss to coat and shake off any excess flour.

Heat the canola oil in the same skillet over high heat. Add the meat a few pieces at a time and brown on all sides. Transfer the browned meat to the slow-cooker insert. Deglaze the pan with the tomatoes, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan.

Transfer the tomatoes to the slow-cooker insert. Add the Guinness (SHINER) and stir to combine. Cover the slow cooker and cook on high for 4-5 hours until the meat and vegetables are tender.

Skim off any fat from the top of the stew and serve the meat and vegetables from the slow cooker.