Slow cooker beef bourguignon

Serves:

This classic French beef bourguignon is a wonderful winter warmer.

It’s worth taking the extra time to prepare and brown the ingredients before adding them to the slow cooker, but once it’s bubbling away, you can forget about it and look forward to dinner time.

Ingredients

• 200g speck*, diced
• 1.2kg chuck steak
• 250g eschalots, peeled
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 medium brown onion, diced
• 3 medium carrots, diced
• 2 stalks celery, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 2 cups (500ml) red wine
• 2 cups (500ml) beef stock
• 1 bay leaf
• 4 sprigs thyme
• 1 strip orange peel
• 300g button mushrooms, quartered

Method

Brown speck in a large non-stick frypan over medium heat for 3 minutes or until the fat starts to render (melt). With a slotted spoon, remove and place in the slow cooker. Cut steak into 5cm pieces. Season well. In batches, brown well on all sides in the remaining speck fat. Remove to slow cooker. Place peeled whole eschalots in frypan and cook for 2 minutes or until golden on all sides. Remove to slow cooker.

Heat olive oil in frypan. Cook onion, carrots, celery and garlic over gentle heat for 3 minutes or until just a little caramelised. Add to slow cooker. Return frypan to high heat. Pour in wine and allow to bubble up. Add stock, bring to the boil and pour over ingredients in slow cooker. Wrap bay leaf and thyme in the orange peel and tuck it into the slow cooker. Cook on a low setting for 6-8 hours, adding the mushrooms for the final hour.

Serve with mashed potato and steamed green vegetables.

Serving Suggestions

Note

• *If speck is unavailable, bacon will suffice.
• You could also use blade or gravy beef instead of chuck steak.

This recipe was created for Kidspot, New Zealand’s best recipe finder by Greer Worsley, who blogs at Typically Red.

Find more slow cooker recipes:

• Lamb and tomato hot pot
• Slow cooker lamb shanks with tomatoes
• Slow cooker beef with red wine shallot gravy
• Slow cooked chicken and chorizo
• Slow cooker chicken soup
• Slow cooker stuffed lamb shoulder
• Chicken and pumpkin slow cooker casserole