Beer Beef Stew (Pressure Cooker)

My Fast Slow Cooker's maiden dish.

I had chuck steak and a can of beer.

This is what i decided to try to make in the pressure cooker.

 
It wasn't the most flavourful, because i didn't use too many ingredients in this to add flavour and i actually didn't have any veggies but the carrots. It was still quite delicious though and we finished it all up.

Ingredients

500gm chuck steak
2 carrots
1 can of beer
2-3 cups of water
Chicken stock paste
(Just sub chicken stock for the above 2 ingredients)
1/4 –1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
2 onions, big chucks (they will melt down when cooked)
2-3 cloves of garlic, chopped
Dried Herbs and Bay Leaves
a little dark soy sauce

Directions

Chop the onions, i used 2 in this dish because it didn't have too much flavour from a variety of ingredients, so i wanted the onions to shine in this dish. Remember to chop the carrots and garlic too!

 
Chop up the chuck steak and trim the fats. Very important. I trimmed some, but left a few in and it formed an oily layer on the top of my stew that i wasn't too fond of. So trim off as much fats as you can.

I seasoned my beef was a little salt and placed the pieces in a plastic bag with some plain flour. I covered the pieces in flour and fried them off using the saute setting of the pressure cooker.

I took the pieces of fried steak out. They are totally not cooked yet. just browned.

Then i added my onions and cooked till they were nice and translucent and brown. After that, i added the garlic.

When the onions and garlic all smell fabulous, add in the pieces of fried steak. Careful not to tear off the flour coating.

 
Add in your can of beer – whatever you have on hand, i don't drink so i have no idea what type of beer this is, i just found it in the fridge, it has been in there for a long time.

Add in the water – around 3 cups. (The pressure cooker needs a minimum of 4 cups of liquid, but i've cheated a little, and it still seemed perfectly fine. The thing is, liquids don't evaporate off, so you're always going to end up with a thin soup)

Squeeze a little chicken stock paste in.

Add mixed dried herbs, a few bay leaves and you're good to go.

Cover the lid and cook for 25 mins.

After it's done. Use the saute setting and let the liquid boil down.

(At this point in time.. the flavour really wasn't enough and it was too oily and liquidy. So fish got to work and he tweaked the flavour by adding some balsamic vinegar, a little dark soy sauce for colour and more herbs and spices – i would say, add the balsamic vinegar before the cooking process the next time.)

And this is what you end up with.

Nice beef stew – the chuck was fork tender.

I cooked some basmati rice to go with this.

Yum yum.

This was not the best maiden dish but it helped me learn the different functions of the cooker. It comes with an awesome manual.