Hachee (Traditional Dutch Beef Winter Stew)

One of the coolest roommates I've ever had was from Amsterdam.  He was living in Boston for only a few months while working in a laboratory publishing a paper.  I don't know how he did it, but he managed to find the only rusty Dutch bicycle to ride in all of Boston on Craigslist.  The guy was always busting into the living room like Kramer from Seinfeld, arms all gangly and flying around his head, with some new awesome and ridiculous story from his day.

I miss him.

He lost a few of his coolness points tonight, though.  Because tonight was the night that I found out about Hachee.  And I blame him for never telling me about it before.

I stumbled upon Kayotic Kitchen, which you totally have to go check out.  Because it's beyond awesome.  And she had this amazing Hachee recipe posted, which she described as the "Dutch version of Boeuf Bourguignon."  I made my standard paleo-ified-tweaks, and used some dried herbs instead of fresh, and OH. MY. GOODNESS. this rocked.  I totally ate too much.  But that's okay.  I own stretchy pants.

Go make this!

Serves 6.

The Tools:
(adapted from Kayotic Kitchen's recipe)

6 qt. crockpot

2 lbs chuck roast (or stew meat)
salt and pepper
a BIG HUNK of butter (don't you love the Dutch?!?!)
3 big onions, chopped coarsely
3 T arrowroot powder
4 T tomato paste
1 cup beef broth
1/2 cup red wine
2 Granny Smith apples, peeled and chopped
2 T molasses
1 tsp rosemary
2 bay leaves
generous pinch of cloves
1 T freshly ground black pepper

The Process:

Chop up your meat into stew meat-sized pieces.  (Or cheat like I do, and buy chuck roast in stew meat pieces already.)  Pat it dry with some paper towels.  Season it liberally with salt and freshly cracked black pepper.

Melt a hunk of butter in a saucepan.  Brown beef in batches, adding more butter if necessary.  When meat is browned, transfer it to the slow cooker.

In the same pan, brown the coarsely chopped onions a bit until they are halfway translucent.  Add onions to the crockpot.

Mix arrowroot powder in with the meat and onions.

Add tomato paste and mix well.

Add beef broth and red wine.

Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well.

Let cook on LOW for 8-10 hours.  Discard bay leaves.

Serve with the traditional mashed potatoes and braised red cabbage.  (The baby seems to be pretty sensitive to cabbage, so I opted for some sauteed spinach instead.)

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