Slow Cooker Beef Casserole

sparkles.

Today my OH made beef casserole in our slow cooker and the beef was very chewy and rough. We bought reasonably 'good' beef and it had plenty of time to cook. The meat was uncooked when it went into the slow cooker but was covered in seasoned flour.

I guess I am wondering a) is pre-cooking that important, b) there was next to no fat on the meat and would that make it tough or c) would tenderising have helped?

Any guidance would be appreciated!

havekidsamskint

Hi

If it's any help I just throw in the beef, no flour or pre cooking, veggies & casserole mix. Set slow cooker on auto and leave it all day.

good luck

RubyMurray

I never pre-cook meat for the slow cooker, and I've found beef to be the most successful thing to come out of it. The only thing I can think of is that it wasn't left cooking for long enough - how many hours did you leave it?

foreverskint

I think you will find that the cheaper cuts of beef ie: shin, braising, skirt etc, will make the better casseroles & stews. You need a bit of fat:D

Beef that is for steaks or roasting is too dry, and seems to toughen when cooked in a stew etc.

I use shin beef for a stew, and a nice bit o skirt for my steak & kidney pies and puddings.

hope that helps...

Debt_Free_Chick

Agree - you need fat to tenderise the meat. A good marbling of fat through the meat is better that a lump of fat on the edge. As the meat cooks the fat just melts into the casserole.

If you have too much fat, you can just skim it from the surface before you serve/thicken the sauce.

thriftlady_2

I agree with Foreverskint and Debt-Free, cheap meat is best for slow cooking.
Shin of beef is the best, all that connective tissue melts to make it deliciously tender. I want some now

Lillibet_2

Agreed, good cuts are wasted on the slow cooker, cheaper cuts are better:D I use leg of beef (is this same as shin? I suppose so). I've never pre-cooked or seasoned, just thrown in. My favourite is with red wine & pickeld onions (and mushrooms & carrotts) & call it beef burgenion (sp?):D The wine tenderises the meat beautifully;)

HTH;)

Edit : X posted with thrift lady

skintchick

Erm, I tried to make a casserole in my SC. I put beef and button muchrooms in it with water, and cooked it overnight. It now smells like dog food What can I do to redeem it? I don;t want to throw it away but it smells b.a.d.

I was obviously planning on doing more to it than I did, but now it smells so horrid I'm not sure what I should do.

squeaky

See the answer I just posted in the SC quick questions thread.

If you have a brown tide mark above your liquids this might be the same problem. It's possible that this is mainly what you are smelling.

So try decanting your casserole into a different container WITHOUT scraping gunk, and see how it smells then.

Good luck

skintchick

Hmm, it's not that - I've decanted it onto the hob, (in a pan!) and it still smells. THink I might just throw it away I must have missed something vital out at the beginning. I'm normally good at cooking so might just chalk it up to experience. Perhaps the meat went off???

squeaky

Pass.

Can't possibly tell from here - though meat that's off gets to smell ripe pretty quickly so I think you'd have noticed if it smelled as bad as your casserole does now.

So... yet again I can't help. Sorry.

I think I'll put the cat out and call it a day. Wednesday, probably