Good morning! So here is a gorgeous and very simple little recipe that I have made in the rice cooker. We will be having a few of these because, after years and years of ignoring them, I finally bought myself a cheap little rice cooker and it is fantastic! So much so that I got one for my Mum (Hi Mum!) for Mother's Day and will be popping some recipes up here for her to use.
Of course you can make this in a pot on the stove, or in the slow cooker, the rice cooker contains the steam in the same way the slow cooker does, so if you are doing it in a pot you will absolutely need more water and more stirring.
Right, let's get started.
So this is a pepper steak casserole, and you can adjust the level of pepperyness, I like mine with PEPPER! Mr T likes his with pepper so I compromise and make it moderately peppery, just enough so he complains that it is too peppery and I complain that it is not peppery enough, but you suit yourself.
Ingredients - serves 4
Olive oil for frying
1 small onion, diced
1 small carrot, diced
1 celery stick, diced
2 cloves garlic, chopped
500g lean diced beef
1/2 a beef stock cube or stock pod
1 cup water
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 can cannellini beans (optional)
2 teaspoons white pepper
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
Pop your olive oil (about one teaspoon) into a small frying pan and gently cook the onion, carrot, celery and garlic until fragrant, place this into the bowl of your rice cooker (or do this in a pot if you are doing on the stove and then just leave it there), add the diced beef, we are not going to brown this because it will toughen the meat and it will take longer to cook, and this dish has heaps of flavour so it doesn't need the help, and I am trying to reduce the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in my diet (the browned bits) because they are not so good for us, so, in with the veg it goes, add the water and stock cube or pod, close the lid and press the 'soup' button, now all rice cookers are different, so yours may work differently, what we are looking for is for it to cook gently but consistently until the beef is tender, for me this took almost two full turns of the 'soup' cycle, about 2 1/2 hours all up, just keep checking it until the meat is tender and restarting whatever cycle you are using until it is.
Once the beef is tender stir in the remaining ingredients, season to taste and serve up with whatever you have chosen to pair with it. In this case I chose mashed potato, which was delicious, last time I made it we had buckwheat, so, rice would be nice, quinoa, even toast in a pinch.
Happy Monday! Xxm