Slow Cooker Red Wine Beef and Dumplings

As Autumn tries to take hold in our semi-tropical climate it will be soon time to dust off the slow cooker and makes some comfort food with minimum effort. Great for the working parents or new mums the slow cooker is the gift that delivers delicious food, effortlessly. 

Beef with Red Wine and Cheesy Dumplings

Ingredients

1kg stewing beef, I always prefer chuck steak, diced
2 Tablespoons plain flour for dusting
2 Tablespoons of Olive Oil
2 large brown onions, sliced
3 carrots, peeled and thickly sliced
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 cup of Red Wine
2 cups of liquid Beef stock
3 Bay leaves

Dumplings

125g Self Raising Flour
1/2 teaspoon Baking powder
60g Butter
1 teaspoon of chopped fresh rosemary
100ml of milk or enough to obtain correct consistency
1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese


Method

Tip flour into a large bowl season with salt and pepper. Dredge the beef in the flour.
Heat Olive Oil in a large frying pan and working in batches, brown the beef.
Add beef to the slow cooker
Pour the wine into the frying pan to deg-laze, scrape contents into the slow cooker.
Add onions, garlic, carrots and bay leaves.
Add the stock and cook on low for 7-8 hours

Dumplings

Rub butter and flour together with fingertips until it resembles moist breadcrumbs. Stir in rosemary.
Gently combine the mild and cheese to form a light scone dough.

Form into golf ball sized balls and place them directly on top of the stew, leaving room for the dumplings to expand.  Replace the lid and cook for another 30 minutes on high until the dumplings have puffed up and are cooked.

Note:

Frying off the beef adds extra flavour but if short on time it is still equally nice just to combine all the ingredients (apart from dumplings) in the slow cooker together.

If you don't have a slow cooker, bake in the oven in a covered casserole dish for 3 hours on low.

Mamma Marmalade