Slow Cooker Beef and Guinness Stew with Dumplings
This is a proper hearty stew which is perfect for those cold, dark winter nights. This sort of dish is just what the slow cooker was made for!
The recipe is split into 2 parts – the stew and the dumplings. The stew requires a little bit of upfront work in the pan, to brown the beef and bring together some of the other ingredients.
For the dumplings, make sure you plan your timings so you can drop them in with an hour to go. If you’ve never made dumplings before, you may not be familiar with suet. It’s usually found in the baking section of supermarkets and the most common brand in the UK is “Atora”, which comes in a blue and yellow carboard box.
We recommend using self-raising flour in your dumplings, to make them light and fluffy. If you’ve only got plain flour, that’s OK but they will be much denser and firmer. You can enjoy this stew on it’s own, with a little bit of crusty bread, or with mashed potatoes.
Slow Cooker Beef and Guinness Stew with Dumplings
Equipment
- Slow Cooker
- Frying Pan
Ingredients
- 800 g Diced braising beef
- 440 ml Guinness
- 3 cloves Garlic Minced
- 150 g Shallots or pearl onions Chopped, or whole if small
- 200 g Chantenay Carrots Trimmed and quartered
- 200 ml Beef stock
- 3 tbsp Tomato puree
- 5 sprigs Fresh thyme
- 2 Bay leaves
Also
- 2 tbsp Plain flour For coating the beef
- 2 tbsp Olive oil
- Pinch Salt
- Pinch Pepper
- Hanful Fresh parsley Chopped, to serve
For the dumplings
- 50 g Suet
- 100 g Self-raising flour
- 1 tbsp Wholegrain mustard
- 4 tbsp Warm Water
- Pinch Salt
Instructions
- Dust diced beef with plain flour and add a pinch of salt and pepper.
- With a little oil in a hot pan, lightly brown the beef on all sides. Add in chopped shallots and minced garlic for the last 2-3 minutes.
- Transfer the beef, shallots and garlic to the slow cooker. Stir in tomato purée and add chopped carrots.
- Pour in Guinness and beef stock.
- Add fresh thyme and bay leaves.
- Cook for 3 hours on high or 6-7 hours on low. (Remember you need another hour for the dumplings later!)
For the dumplings
- Mix suet, self raising flour, salt, wholegrain mustard and a little warm water in a bowl. Mix into a dough with your hands.
- Split the dough into 8 small dumplings.
- Add to the slow cooker and set to high for 1 hour.
