Highs and lows of the Slow Cooker: Shin of Beef Chile con Carne

Working mainly from home means that from 4.30 pm each afternoon, I spend a lot of effort trying to resist the magnetic pull of the kitchen. In days of yore, I’d launch myself in there with gusto from about 3 pm to start crafting a feast for the family. However, that was when I didn’t have any responsibilities. None at all. But now I have an ever-growing reading list, and an upcoming PhD upgrade which isn’t keeping me awake at night, but still makes me a little nervous. In short, even my to-do lists are breeding, so I’ve been barring myself from the kitchen in order to get some work done.

Thinking it would help, I bought a slow-cooker. Great, I thought, delicious meals prepared at the beginning of the day, or even the night before, left to do their thing until dinner time! What could go wrong? I’ll tell you what could go wrong; my Luddite distrust of technology. Surely the power would cut off. Does something electric use more energy than the oven? Will it bubble over? Will it cook at all? The slow cooker is not for the stay-at-home individual. It’s for people who have real jobs, involving outside, schedules, maybe even business lunches in the City. Speaking as the opposite of that demographic, for the best part of the afternoon, I got up every ten minutes to check on the infernal pot, intermittently shouting “IT’S BUBBLING!” to an empty room.

The food was good, but maybe I’ll keep the slow cooker for another day…

This recipe makes six servings in a 4-person capacity slow cooker.

Ingredients:

Olive oil

1 ½ lbs shin of beef pieces (or any casserole steak)

4 rashers smoked bacon lardons (optional)

1 onion

1 clove garlic

1 tbsp tomato puree

1 tsp each ground cumin, coriander, chilli flakes, salt

½ a bottle of Guinness/Porter, or any beer you fancy

½ pint beef stock (made up from a cube)

Big pinch of brown sugar

2 bell peppers

1 can kidney beans

To garnish:

Grated cheddar cheese

Soured cream

Lime wedges

Chopped fresh coriander

Tortilla chips

Method:

1) Heat a splash of olive oil in a frying pan and colour the shin of beef pieces. When done, tip them into the slow-cooker pot. Cook off the bacon lardons until crispy and add to the pot, along with the chopped onion, garlic and tomato puree.

2) Sprinkle over the spices and salt before pouring over the Guinness and beef stock to cover. Make sure you don’t overfill the ceramic pot; ¾ full is ideal. Stir in the pinch of brown sugar to offset the bitterness in the beer,

3) Set the slow cooker to “high” and leave for 6 hours or so, until the meat is tender. Alternatively, set it to “low” the night before, or early in the morning when you leave for work (not happening in this house).

4) If you’re cooking on the day, when you’re 5 hours in, tip in the chopped peppers and kidney beans and leave for another hour, until the peppers have softened.

Serve the chilli with rice, tortilla chips, cornbread… whatever you fancy. Just don't blame me if you spend all day on your feet watching the magic happen. You have been warned.