Witches' Cauldron Beef Stew in the Slow Cooker, for the Halloween Table

Halloween falls on Saturday, and the kitchen object people are hunting for is a cauldron that actually cooks. In its Frightgeist report on 14 October, Google said search interest in the "cauldron crock pot" is at an all-time high, as its trends team wrote. A week later, The Gadgeteer was pointing readers to a $49.99 four-quart cauldron-shaped slow cooker as the practical way to use that look at a party.

The appliance has a plain history. According to Wikipedia's account of the slow cooker, Irving Naxon designed his bean cooker after his mother's stories of his grandmother's Lithuanian cholent, a stew that baked for hours, and Rival relaunched it as the Crock-Pot in 1971. A cauldron is, in effect, a stew pot with a costume, and stew is what it does best.

This is a dark, savoury beef stew, deepened with stout and Worcestershire sauce and finished with green peas that look suitably swampy in the black broth. Browning the beef first is not optional, because a slow cooker never gets hot enough to do it. Everything else goes in and is left alone.

Ingredients

Serves 6. Total time about 8 hours 30 minutes: 30 minutes of preparation and 8 hours of cooking on low.

• 1.2 kg boneless beef chuck, trimmed and cut into 4 cm cubes
• 30 g plain flour
• 1 1/2 tsp fine salt, divided
• 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 45 ml (3 tbsp) vegetable oil, divided
• 2 large onions (about 350 g), thinly sliced
• 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 40 g (2 tbsp) tomato paste
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 330 ml stout or porter
• 250 ml beef stock
• 30 ml (2 tbsp) Worcestershire sauce
• 2 bay leaves
• 400 g carrots, peeled and cut into 3 cm chunks
• 500 g waxy potatoes, scrubbed and cut into 4 cm chunks
• 150 g frozen peas
• 15 ml (1 tbsp) balsamic vinegar
• Chopped flat-leaf parsley, to serve

Method

1. Pat the beef dry with paper towels. Toss it with the flour, 1 tsp of the salt and the pepper until every cube is lightly coated.
2. Heat 2 tbsp of the oil in a wide, heavy frying pan over medium-high heat. Brown the beef in three batches, 2 to 3 minutes a side, until deeply browned, and move each batch to the slow cooker. Do not crowd the pan or the meat will steam.
3. Lower the heat to medium and add the remaining oil and the onions. Cook for 6 to 8 minutes, stirring, until soft and browned at the edges. Add the garlic, tomato paste, paprika and thyme and cook for 1 minute.
4. Pour in the stout, scraping up the browned bits from the base of the pan. Boil for 2 minutes, then add the stock and Worcestershire sauce and pour everything over the beef.
5. Tuck in the bay leaves, carrots and potatoes and push them down so they are mostly under the liquid. Sprinkle over the remaining 1/2 tsp salt and cover.
6. Cook on low for 8 hours, or on high for 4 to 5 hours, until the beef falls apart under a spoon. Resist lifting the lid, since each peek lets heat escape.
7. Remove the bay leaves. Stir in the frozen peas, replace the lid and cook on high for 15 minutes, until the peas are hot.
8. Stir in the balsamic vinegar and taste for salt. If the broth is thinner than you like, mash a few potato chunks against the side of the pot, or cook with the lid ajar on high for 20 minutes.
9. Ladle into bowls, scatter with parsley and serve hot, with bread for the broth.

Tips, swaps and storage

Fit the cooker. The quantities above need a cooker of about 5.5 litres or more. A four-quart cauldron model, about 3.8 litres, will take half the recipe: 600 g beef, 200 g carrots, 250 g potatoes and the liquids halved.