Keep warm and safe and a Comforting Beef Stew in the Ninja Foodie Multicooker
What an awful weekend weather-wise. We have chosen to stay in the house trying to keep warm. Trouble is with an old house when the wind blows, it chills the air that little bit more, but there we are. We have Gas central heating, but I wish I had a Woodburner range cooker and at least a couple of fires. At least here we have not had take off with the fitted carpet! It is very disconcerting when your carpet "flys". Extra jumper on, heating on, but not to a silly point. We have chosen to keep a couple of rooms warmer by keeping doors closed etc.
I had to top up with new potatoes and onions yesterday in any event. The shop where I get a net of onions from for £2 and they are large onions, is the Asian supply store. It has lots of interesting things in and they sell dried whole Rosebuds and Lavender and Chamomile and Hibiscus which are ideal for teas but also home made toiletries and bath products. Also lots of different spices and flavourings including Rose water, different colourings and flavourings. I usually also buy my Golden Raisins from here in a bigger pack. Lots of other stuff too including different coloured mustard seeds and oils, Almond oils and Mustard Oil. However, I was surprised to find Nestle Carnation tinned cream. This is an old favourite that my Nan and Mum used to keep in to top tinned fruit for Sunday afternoon tea. I have only been able to locate it sporadically. However, I understand from a friend that it is also to be found in Morrisons so I shall go and have a look. I did however come away with four tins at £1.19 per tin yesterday. May have to go back to top up the pantry. It is worth keeping in. I put about a teaspoon of sugar in the tinned cream, and mix it before serving on the top of my chosen tinned fruit. I also keep in evaporated milk. That used to be served on fruit as well, but I find it is very good in a rice pudding.
Food-wise though, it has been comfort food. Cold weather calls for home made stew and mashed potato. Well it does in my book, and I was cold and hungry yesterday. The cold weather has given a keen edge to my appetite.
My mother had a pressure cooker 60+ years back. She was a keen advocate of the pot that used to hiss and spit and make a racket on the cooker. Most people are afraid of them as a result. So much so that when the old one wore out and she could no longer get the replacement gasket she upgraded to the newer model. The old one was turned into an oil pot for my father who was an Engineer in his shed.
The stove top varieties are still available today and I am quite used to using these, especially for use on a range cooker. Mum could make sure that we had a very good hot meal each day by cooking meat in the bottom and veggies on top very efficiently and cheaply. I still intend to get a couple of traditional pressure cookers for my battery in due course to replace those lost in the fire. We always used them and always used them for jam and marmalade as well.
Please note that this is not an advertisement. Just my personal opinion on a very useful piece of equipment. This is a multicooker which is very effective both in producing excellent food in one pot, but also very cheaply. A 3lb chicken is cooked in under an hour. Something to bear in mind with the increase in power prices just recently.
I have had the Ninja Foodie for sometime. It is from my perspective a brilliant bit of kit. It is sturdy, and very heavy so needs to be kept on a worktop to save on the heaving around. However that sturdiness means that the hot machine does not shift anywhere whilst cooking. It is also easy to clean as it has a removable inner bowl. The model I have which is the largest has been updated and I believe it has some steam cooking functions for baking bread and cooking vegetables which my model although having steam functions, has yogurt and dehydrating functions instead. I also believes that it now only has the one lid whereas mine has two.
Pressure cooking on my model requires a separate lid to be placed on top and it is a fully computerised programme which has a coming up to pressure programme referred to on the machine as "Pre". When using the pressure cooker function there is a lever on top which has two options. Seal and Vent. You have to make sure that the lever is on seal to start cooking.
How I make my Beef Stew in the Ninja
I start off by using the Sear/Saute function by adding in a little oil and a knob of butter and then I fry chopped onions until golden brown. I then add cubed beef steak which has been floured into the pot a few pieces at a time until all used up. I then add in raw shallot, leek, potato cubes and carrots. You can add in what vegetables you want, but these are the ones I normally use. I add a little water every so often rather than popping the water in, in one fair swoop as it can drown out the flavour a bit. If you make your own home made stock this would be a good use of it instead of water - more layers of flavour.
One thing with the Ninja pressure cooking is that you need plenty of liquid in for the pressure cooker function to work properly otherwise it will switch off as mentioned above.
The gravy to a stew is the most important thing for me. Gravy either breaks or makes a meal. I then add in the following items;
Before putting on pressure cooking function, I then add a good squirt of tomato ketchup, a good pinch of mixed herbs, a couple of bay leaves, a good couple of dollops of Lea & Perrins Worcester sauce, a tablespoon of Marigold Vegetable Bouillon powder, a chicken stock pot and a beef one, about a tablespoon of Oxo Beef gravy powder (the one that has thickening in it), half a tablespoon of Redcurrant or Cranberry jelly (other preserves such as apple jelly, blackberry jam etc can and do work) but I tend to use Redcurrant or Cranberry jelly as standard. Plenty of white pepper (not so harsh as Black pepper and more subtle to my mind gives a more rounded flavour) I use a lot of white pepper in general cooking. I do continually taste. I do not add salt at this stage as the stockpots can be very salty.
Preferably do not put thickener in until the end (I am talking cornflour or Arrowroot here).
I then switch to the pressure cooking function.
The first picture below shows the stew once it has had a couple of ten minute cycles in the pressure cooker. It is at this point that I will switch the machine back to sear/saute and then taste and adjust the flavourings to my palate by adding in more of the flavourings if necessary; however more often than not this is not necessary. Adjust to your own palate. It is at this point that I add more salt if necessary. I usually add a little pink Himalayan salt at this point not much just a sprinkle. I then thicken up with Cornflour or Arrowroot and serve with creamy mashed potato. You could serve with Champ or Colcannon or even cheesy mash if you want to.
It makes a lovely warming meal.
What is funny is that I would never eat stew as I was made to sit at table and eat veg that I did not like i.e. swede and parsnip. I then started eating a year before my mum passed she made one and I agreed to give it a go. I enjoyed and cautiously started eating and cooking it for myself.
As I was hungry last night, I ate two soup bowls of mash and stew. It went down very nicely. We still have a scuttle full left and will probably have that tomorrow.
For brunch this morning, OH had yet another simple meal. Cheese on toast with Lea & Perrins sprinkled on top. Does the job rather nicely. He had a fry up yesterday morning, so that was not being repeated today.
We have a Cottage pie for tea this evening. Another warm and comforting meal on this cold wet and windy winter's day.
Keep safe wherever you are.
Catch you soon.
Pattypan
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