Can be cooked in the oven or slow cooker…
Prep: 20 minutes
Cook: 2 hours to all day
170℃ / Gas mark 4/ or slow cooker/ or bottom oven of Aga
• Freezable
• Easy
• Can be made for ‘Healthy Clean Lean’ Detox
Ingredients (serves 4)

Stew

2 tbsp olive or coconut oil
1 onion, chopped
1 clove of garlic, crushed
3 carrots, chopped
500g braising steak
1 tbsp plain or brown rice flour
1 x 400gms tin tomatoes
500ml beef stock
Dumplings
175g self raising flour OR 175gms brown rice flour (gluten free) and 1tsp baking powder
75g suet, shredded
1 tbsp parsley, chopped
½ tsp pepper
water
If you are on the ‘Healthy, Clean and Lean 30 Day Detox’ please see the bottom of the recipe

Method

    1. Preheat oven 170’C
    1. In a large oven proof dish, fry onions in a little oil until they are translucent, add the beef and fry until the beef is browned
    1. Stir in the flour then add the stock, tomatoes, carrots, garlic
    1. Cover with a tightly fitting lid and place in a 170’C oven for around 2 hours – braising steak tends to be get more tender the longer you cook it
  1. Add pepper if necessary but you may find that the stock gives enough seasoning

Dumplings

    1. While the stew is cooking, sieve the flour into a bowl and add the suet, parsley and pepper
    1. Next add enough water to make a soft but not sticky dough, around 2-3 tbsp
    1. Lightly flour your hands and roll the dough into eight small balls
  1. Add to the stew 20 minutes before the end of the cooking time

For the ‘Healthy Clean Lean 30 Day Detox’…..

Vary the vegetables – other possibilities include parsnips, swede, butternut squash or mushrooms – also try frying some leeks instead of onions. The aim is to have the meat, but, make sure that you are keeping you protein to the correct amount. Adding vegetables to this lovely gravy will make it even more delicious and packed with vitamins.
For the complex carb dumplings choose some of the following vegetables, whatever is in you fridge. Sweat finely diced parsips, swede, butternut squash, sweet potato with some onion. Then steam for 12 minutes till soft. Mash with potato masher. Add freshly chopped parsley or coriander. Then make up as the dumplings above. They will be slightly denser in texture that the straightforward dumplings, but, packed with flavour.
Make sure that you serve the stew and dumplings with the right preportions. A healthy amount of crisp kale or savoy cabbage will go really nicely with this.
Slow cooker method: coat the meat with the flour and brown in a pan (optional), transfer to the slow cooker and add the other ingredients – stir well – cook for about 8 hrs on LOW, about 30-60 minutes before serving, turn the slow cooker up to HIGH, make up the dumpling mixture and add dumplings to the top of the stew – cook for 30-40 minutes