The Great American Slow Cooker Book (32 page)

1
Toss the beef, scallions, ginger, orange zest, and garlic in the slow cooker until the meat is coated in the aromatics.

2
Whisk the soy sauce, orange juice, rice vinegar, brown sugar, and chile paste in a large bowl until the sugar has dissolved. Pour over the ingredients in the slow cooker.

3
Cover and cook on low for 6 hours.

4
Stir the contents of the slow cooker and sprinkle the snow peas over the top. Turn the heat to high, cover, and cook for 30 minutes, or until the beef is tender but the snow peas are still a bit firm.

TESTERS’ NOTES

•
Barely authentic with no wok in sight, this slow cooker version of the traditional dish is nonetheless an easy workday dinner with spot-on flavors from the original.

•
If the snow peas are very large, you’ll need to remove the fibrous string that runs along the concave curve. Grab it at one end and zip it down the snow pea.

SHORTCUTS
Use beef cut into strips for stir-fry, available in the meat case of most supermarkets.

INGREDIENTS EXPLAINED
Asian red chile paste is actually the name for an array of condiments, some soupy, most fiery, many incendiary. Look for bottles and jars in the Asian aisle of your supermarket. You can substitute
sambal oelek
or even Sriracha for a brighter, less complex heat.

Serve It Up!
Although cooked white or brown rice might be the standard, serve this aromatic braise over wilted Swiss chard.

1
Spread a flattened piece of steak out on a cutting board and smear with ½ tablespoon mustard. Top with 2 bacon pieces and a dill pickle spear, laying them so they run the length of the steak and are parallel to one another. Roll up the beef so that the pickle runs along the tube’s length. Use butchers’ twine to tie the roll in two or three places. Set aside and continue making more rolls.

2
Toss the onions and butter in the slow cooker until the onions are coated. Sprinkle the caraway seeds over the onions, then nestle the beef rolls seam side down into the cooker. Sprinkle these rolls with paprika; pour the broth into the cooker, taking care not to knock the paprika off the beef.

3
Cover and cook on low for 6 hours, or until the beef is tender and the onions have begun to break down into a sauce.

TESTERS’ NOTES

•
Good enough for a dinner party, these beef rolls are salty, peppery, and buttery—in other words, heaven. Break out the beer!

•
Use fairly thin pickle spears so the rolls hold together.

•
The beef may shrink as it cooks and so can fall apart as you lift the rolls out of the cooker. Use a large, wide metal spatula.

•
To tie the rolls, make two or three loops around them, knotting each. Don’t pull the butchers’ twine so tight that it squeezes the roll—just tight enough to hold it. Snip the twine off when you serve the rouladen—or let everyone cut his or her own off at the table.

INGREDIENTS EXPLAINED
Butchers’ twine is a sturdy, food-safe twine sold at larger supermarkets and many hardware stores. Don’t use any twine or string that may have been manufactured with harmful dyes or solvents.

ALL-AMERICAN KNOW-HOW
To flatten round steaks, set one between two sheets of wax paper on your work surface, then use the smooth side of a meat mallet or the bottom of a heavy saucepan to whack the beef to the desired thickness. But don’t just strike it willy-nilly; instead, strike it near the center with a glancing blow, arching your swing so it moves out toward the edge of the steak, pushing the meat toward the perimeter. Peel off the wax paper and flatten more steaks between more sheets of wax paper.

Serve It Up!
Although mashed potatoes seem like a natural side for this dish, consider steaming peeled and cubed celery root or rutabaga before mashing the vegetables with some broth and butter.

1
Bring a saucepan of water to a boil over high heat. Place the mushrooms in a large bowl and fill the bowl at least halfway with boiling water. Soak for 30 minutes.

2
Meanwhile, melt the butter in a large skillet set over medium heat. Drop in the pancetta and fry, stirring often, until crisp, particularly at the corners of each piece, between 4 and 8 minutes, depending on the size of the batch. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the pancetta to the slow cooker.

3
Set the eye of round roast in the skillet, still over medium heat. Brown on all sides, letting the roast sit for a few minutes, turning it a bit, then browning some more, up to 15 minutes, until dark brown blotches mottle the cut. Use tongs or a metal spatula to transfer the roast to the slow cooker.

4
Dump the onions into the skillet and cook, stirring often, until they soften, between 4 and 7 minutes, depending on the size of the batch. Scrape the contents of the skillet over and around the beef.

5
Add the carrots to the cooker, nestling them around the roast, not on it. Nestle the rosemary and bay leaves in the cooker to the sides of the roast.

6
Drain the soaked mushrooms in a colander set over a large bowl, catching and reserving the soaking liquid. Sprinkle the mushrooms around the cooker, not on the beef.

7
Whisk the wine, tomato paste, and pepper in a large bowl until smooth; whisk in 1 cup of the mushroom-soaking liquid for a small slow cooker, 2¼ cups for a medium model, or 3½ cups for a large one. Pour into the cooker.

8
Cover and cook on low for 4½ hours for a small slow cooker, 5½ hours for a medium slow cooker, or 7 hours for a large slow cooker, or until the beef is fork-tender.

9
Transfer the roast to a cutting board; let it stand for 10 minutes. Use a spoon to skim off any fat from the sauce in the cooker. Slice the roast into steak rounds about ¼ inch thick. Serve the steak with the sauce and vegetables on the side.

TESTERS’ NOTES

•
Make sure you get all the dried porcini bits out of the bag, even the dust in the bottom. You don’t want to miss any flavor.

•
A fat separator will require a lot of work. Ladle all the vegetables, mushrooms, and sauce through a fine-mesh sieve and into a fat separator. Place the vegetables and mushrooms in a serving bowl, then wait a few minutes, until the fat indeed separates from the sauce.

INGREDIENTS EXPLAINED
Eye of round roasts vary in shape, from those that are uniform tubs of beef to those that taper at one end. For slow cooker dishes, try to get the most uniform roast so it cooks evenly throughout.

Serve It Up!
Since you don’t want to miss a drop of that sauce, how about serving this on a bed of creamy polenta? In fact, there’s a recipe for
Parmesan Polenta
, if you’ve got a second cooker on hand.

1
Stir the tomatoes, onion, celery, peppers, olives, raisins, tomato paste, oregano, cumin, salt, and bay leaf in the slow cooker until the tomato paste dissolves into the mix.

2
Nestle the skirt steak(s) into the sauce, cutting large steaks to fit the size of your slow cooker and overlapping them as necessary without folding the steaks over onto themselves. In the end, they should all be submerged in the sauce.

3
Cover and cook on low for 9 hours, or until the beef is so tender it can be shredded with a fork. Remove the bay leaf and use two forks to shred the meat completely. Stir in the vinegar before serving.

TESTERS’ NOTES

•
Here’s a rather well-known beef dish, originally from the Canary Islands and now popular across the Caribbean and the southern United States, particularly around Miami. The name (
ROH-pah vee-AY-hah
) means “old clothes” and refers to the way the meat shreds into strings—an unflattering way to describe a terrific meal.

•
We used skirt steak, rather than the more traditional flank steak, because the skirt steak will end up in shorter threads and be easier to eat. Also, it’s a far more flavorful cut.

INGREDIENTS EXPLAINED
Prized for its good flavor, like a steak version of a chuck roast, a skirt steak is from a group of muscles on the underbelly in front of the cow’s flank. This long, thin steak is familiar as the original cut used for fajitas; it was also called “Roumanian tenderloin” in old-school delis.

Serve It Up!
Ropa Vieja is most often served with white rice and a pot of tender, saucy black beans.