Honestly, a crockpot roast is always good ... but the same old beef and potatoes can get very boring very fast. Let's spice it up. This is an overnight or all-day slow cooker recipe (12 hours!)
Ingredients:
3-4 lb. chuck roast
salt and black pepper
olive oil
2 teaspoons dried cilantro
2 teaspoons dried ginger
1 Tablespoon crushed red pepper
5 garlic cloves, sliced
1 small red onion, chopped
1/4 cup soy sauce (I used gluten-free)
1/2 cup dry red wine
juice of one orange and 2 Tablespoons zest/thinly sliced peel of orange (I used two small blood oranges)
Rice (white, jasmine or brown)
Red and yellow mini-peppers
Green onions
Preparation:
- Heat a splash of oil in skillet over medium-high heat and swirl pan to coat. Trim all fat from the chuck roast. Sprinkle the beef with salt and pepper, both sides. Brown the roast in the pan, both sides (about 4 minutes a side). Place browned roast in greased crockpot (spray with nonstick cooking spray or wipe with oil).
- In small bowl, blend cilantro, ginger, red pepper. Sprinkle half on the roast; flip the roast and sprinkle with the other half of spices.
- Dump your sliced garlic and chopped onion on top of the roast. Pour the soy sauce and red wine around the roast. Squeeze your orange on top of the roast and sprinkle with the zest/peel.
Cook and Serve:
- Cook in the crockpot on low for 12 hours (no peeking or lifting the cover). Lift the roast carefully out of the crockpot and shred it. The beef will be so tender you can shred it with the side of a spoon!
- To cook the peppers and onions: De-seed and slice the mini-peppers. Cut the root ends off the green onions. Drizzle with oil and toss into a hot grill-pan or skillet on your stovetop. Grill several minutes until charred and slightly tender.
- Serve the shredded beef over cooked rice. Top with peppers and onions.
- ALTERNATIVE: The shredded Thai Beef is great on nachos (picture below) -- warm tortilla chips in the oven and top with hot cheese sauce, beef, salsa, avocado, jalapenos and green onions.
A Little Backstory:
My mom asked how I came up with this recipe. Well, the same way I do most recipes. I poked around for recipes with new combinations of spices. I came across a Thai beef recipe that wasn't quite right and I also didn't have all the ingredients ... but I took it from there and experimented. And I made mistakes. (Adding the mini-peppers to the crockpot was a mushy error.) That's the fun part about cooking -- trial, error, still tastes OK but could be better, try again, make it better. And you can eat the mistakes!
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