I have been a Martha Stewart watcher since I worked for her back in the 80’s around the time her first cookbook came out. Over the years I’ve dropped my subscriptions to most of the food magazines keeping only Martha Stewart and Cherry Bombe.
Martha has come out with a slow cooker book called, unsurprisingly Martha Stewarts Slow Cooker book. As is her way her September issue featured many recipes from the new book. One that caught my eye was Ropa Vieja. Ropa Vieja is Spanish for old clothes but I can assure you the finished dish does not look or smell like old clothes! It’s fragrant with cumin and sweet with onions and peppers.
I started the recipe with the best intentions, but took many twists and turns and in the end did my own thing cooking it in the Instapot instead of a slow cooker. The recipe called for flank steak, which historically was a lower cost cut of meat until Fajitas were discovered and everyone started buying it. The day I was at the grocery store, the flank steak was $17.00 a pound! That put me in the direction of chuck steak at a far more reasonable $5.00 a pound. The recipe calls for bell peppers, but I had half a jar of Mezzetta Roasted Red Peppers in my fridge, so this was the perfect opportunity to use them up. I was happy to have to use up the tomato paste and canned tomatoes in my pantry, but once I opened the tomato paste it wasn’t very confidence inspiring so it was omitted. I am apparently out of cumin seeds! Who knew, so ground cumin was used instead. Lastly since I have that great Paella spice blend I threw some of that into the pot because it’s flavors are very complementary to this dish.
An Instapot makes a crockpot obsolete in my kitchen. Not that I have anything against crockpots, they are excellent pieces of equipment. But using the pressure cooker feature on an Instapot makes the most delicious food and most things are cooked in less than an hour. For those of you unfamiliar, the Instapot is an electric multi-function cooker. It can be used to sautee, pressure cook, slow cook, and as a rice cooker. It is a very popular kitchen tool and is all the rage with many Facebook pages devoted to it’s use and recipes. It’s available on Amazon for around $70.00. I haven’t explored the slow cooker feature because cooking with the pressure cooker feature gives the food such intense flavor. Chicken stock made in the Instapot is outstanding. However if I knew I had almost no time for dinner before going out after work I would certainly make this as a slow cooker dish since I could set it up in the morning and come home to a fully cooked dinner.
It smelled heavenly and is delicious served over potatoes with a dollop of sour cream.
Here’s my version, loosely based on Martha’s.
2 chuck steaks, seasoned with salt and pepper
1 T butter and 2 T olive oil
2 onions, sliced
1 clove garlic, chopped
1/2 jar Mezzetta roasted red peppers
1 t cumin
1 t paella blend
1 can-28 oz. crushed fire roasted tomatoes
1/2 C chicken broth
3 or 4 sprigs cilantro
Instructions
Place the Instapot on sauté and add the butter and olive oil. Once the butter has melted brown the steaks on both sides and remove.
Add the onions and sauté several minutes or until the onions have softened.
Add the garlic, roasted peppers, cumin, and paella blend, and sauté another minute to distribute the spices.
Add the tomatoes and chicken broth and return the steaks to the pot. End the sautee cycle, cover the pot and press the beef stew button and let it go through the beef stew cycle (about 35 minutes without the cool down period).
Once cooked taste for seasoning, add cilantro and serve.
Serves 4-6
If you don’t have a slow cooker or Instapot you can go old school and make this in a Dutch oven on the stove. Follow all the directions and once the tomato and broth is added and the steak returned to the pot, bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and simmer partially covered, stirring occasionally for around 40 minutes. Taste for seasoning and serve.
