I'm very impressed at how adventurous the Madhouse kids have been this week. When I laughingly asked who fancied trying an African beef stew with peanut butter in it, I thought they'd flatly refuse, but I was amazed when they all said OK ... as long as they didn't have to finish it if it was horrible ! Luckily it turned out very tasty.
I've already shared a recipe for Chicken Mafe, which used products from a Cameroon-themed Kitchen Trotter box. This time, I adapted a recipe for Beef Maffé, which is described as a dish from Mali. Many recipes have variations that cover large geographical areas that can't be pinpointed to a single country though, so I'm sure they are both very similar in origin. I made this in the slow cooker to make sure the beef was nice and tender, but the original recipe used a casserole dish in the oven.
Slow Cooker Beef Maffé
ingredients :
1kg beef
2 onions
1 clove of garlic
1 green pepper
1 tin whole peeled tomatoes (or 2 fresh tomatoes)
2tbsp tomato concentrate
4 heaped tbsp peanut butter
1 chicken stock cube
salt, pepper, paprika (+ chilli powder, if desired)
a couple of handfuls of baby potatoes
Chop the beef into chunks and throw it into the slow cooker. You can brown it off on all sides beforehand if you want, but I didn't bother this time, as I was short of time. Season with salt, pepper and paprika.
Peel and chop the onions, garlic and green pepper and add to the slow cooker.
Add the tinned tomatoes, the stock cube, the tomato concentrate and the peanut butter.
Toss in the potatoes.
Give it all a good stir and add a little water if needed, not forgetting that you need very little liquid added in the slow cooker.
Leave to cook for 4-6 hours until the beef is tender (almost to falling apart) and the sauce is well blended.
Serve on its own or with an extra vegetable of your choice. You could also serve it with flatbread to scoop up the sauce.
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Favourite part of this post "as long as they didn't have to finish it if it was horrible!" ;) Hope it went down well, I've never had much luck adding potatoes to a slow cooker recipe, perhaps mine were too big?
ReplyDeleteThese were very small baby potatoes but I do use big ones cut into chunks (quarters or halves depending on size). I always make sure there's a wet ingredient like stock or tinned tomatoes so that they have liquid to cook in but they always come out fine. I tend to cook everything on high and leave it cooking all afternoon, so usually 5-7 hours. And I don't peel them but I don't think that would make any difference !
DeleteYes I think I need to try them again - and maybe try different types (maybe Charlotte ones work better for example) I never peel them either, why create extra work ;))
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