Layer chopped tomatoes and onions in your slow-cooker, top with marinated beef cubes, cover with a mixture of stock and spices and come home to a mouth-watering meal of spicy slow-cooker beef Trinchado.
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What is Trinchado?
Trinchado is simply a spicy beef stew, which you will find on the menu at any of the numerous Portuguese restaurants in South Africa.
It’s made with tender chunks of stewing beef in a spicy tomato and onion gravy, flavoured with red wine and peri-peri sauce. Trinchado is traditionally served with chunky bread to mop up all the delicious sauce, and a side helping of French fries.
I’ve got another recipe for quick and easy beef Trinchado which uses slices of steak and is very popular with my readers. However it does involve some hands-on cooking, so I thought I’d adapt it for those of you who prefer using a slow-cooker.
Because of the long, slow cooking time, you can get away with using cheaper cuts of stewing beef, such as chuck or flank rather than the more expensive cuts of steak. But believe you me, you lose absolutely nothing in the flavour department. This slow-cooker beef Trinchado turns out tender, juicy and succulent, with all the fabulous peri-peri flavour, but with minimal effort on your part.
Red wine adds a richness and depth of flavour to the Trinchado and I would recommend adding it. However, if you don’t want to add alcohol you can substitute the red wine with extra stock, or even use red grape juice instead.
This slow-cooker Trinchado recipe is the ultimate one-pan meal. You don’t even have to brown the meat first. Just marinate it in a mixture of cornflour and Worcestershire sauce for 30 minutes and then layer it with tomatoes and onions in a spicy sauce and forget about it for a few hours until you are ready to eat.
You end up with pieces of beef that are so tender you could cut them with a fork!
You can even serve it directly from the inner liner of your slow-cooker, so you save on loads of washing up! How convenient is that?
What is peri-peri?
Peri-peri is a small red chilli, similar to a bird’s eye chilli, grown in South Africa and the neighbouring Mocambique. This chilli, and gets its name from the Swahilli word for pepper, which is peri, but because it is so hot, the name has been doubled to be peri-peri or pepper-pepper.
The most popular use of the peri-peri chilli is in the famous Nando’s peri-peri sauce, which I have used in this recipe. If you’d like to try a Nando’s copycat chicken recipe, why not take a look at my recipe for oven-baked peri-peri chicken.
Equipment
To make this dish you will need a slow-cooker. I have this one with low, medium and high settings. If you are out at work for most of the day, you may prefer a slow-cooker with a timer.
Ingredients
**You can get the complete slow-cooker beef Trinchado recipe on the printable recipe card at the end of this post**
This recipe serves 4 people.
Ingredients for the beef and the marinade
- Stewing beef – this can be chuck, flank or any other tougher cut of beef that benefits from long slow cooking. It should be cut into bite-sized pieces. In the UK, most supermarkets sell packets of ready cubed stewing steak, which is probably a mixture of various cuts of beef and is ideal for use in this dish.
- Worcestershire sauce – you may think that the amount of Worcestershire sauce that goes into this Trinchado recipe is too much, but it does contribute to the robust flavour.
- Cornflour – marinating the beef in a mixture of cornflour and Worcestershire sauce starts to break down the fibres in the meat and helps to tenderise the meat. For US readers, cornflour is also known as cornstarch.
Ingredients for the gravy
- Tomatoes – I like to use fresh tomatoes rather than canned. If you don’t have fresh tomatoes you can substitute with an equivalent amount (which is about half a can or 1 cup) of canned chopped tomatoes.
- Onions – these should be coarsely chopped and separated.
- Garlic – you can use fresh garlic, which should be finely minced, or ready chopped garlic from a jar.
- Balsamic vinegar – along with the red wine adds an element of tartness.
- Peri-peri sauce – this is Nando’s peri-peri sauce which is sold in most large supermarkets in the UK. I believe it is also available at Safeway, Kroger and Walmart in the US. For this recipe, you will need about half a cup (140 ml) of sauce. Depending on how hot and spicy you want to make this dish you could use a mild, medium or hot variety. You can buy Nando’s in both a sauce and a marinade. I only had the marinade in my cupboard so that’s what I went with. If you use the sauce you may need to use less as it will be more concentrated.
- Beef stock – if you have proper beef stock, then by all means use that. Otherwise, just dissolve one beef stock cube in 1 cup of boiling water.
- Red wine – this should be a good-tasting wine that you would actually drink. A wine that doesn’t taste good when you drink it won’t improve in flavour when you cook with it, and might even spoil the overall taste of the finished dish. My motto is ‘if you wouldn’t drink it, don’t cook with it’.
- Salt and Sugar – this is for seasoning and to your own taste. I’ve found that half a teaspoon of salt is about right for my taste. I also like to all a teaspoon of sugar when I’m cooking with tomatoes as I find this mellows the tartness of the tomatoes. Both the salt and the sugar are optional.
- Cornflour or cornstarch (not pictured) – for thickening the gravy.
Recipe Steps
Step 1 – Marinate the beef
- Cut the beef into bite-sized pieces and place it in a mixing bowl with the cornflour and Worcestershire sauce.
- Mix thoroughly to coat the beef completely.
- Cover the dish with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to marinate.
Step 2 – Prepare the gravy
- Peel the onions and chop them coarsely. Separate the pieces into individual petals.
- Peel the garlic and crush.
- Chop the tomatoes. I don’t bother peeling them, but if you want to peel the tomatoes first, here is how you do it.
- Score the skin of each tomato on the bottom with a cross.
- Place the tomatoes in a bowl and cover the tomatoes with boiling water.
- Let them stand for two minutes.
- Remove the tomatoes from the boiling water and plunge them into a bowl of cold water to cool them down so that you can handle them.
- Peel the skins away.
Step 3 – Assemble and cook
- Layer the tomatoes, onions and garlic on the bottom of your slow-cooker and top with the marinated beef. Also, tip in any remaining marinade.
- Combine the stock, red wine, balsamic vinegar and peri-peri sauce with salt and sugar, and pour the mixture over the meat and vegetables.
- Set the slow-cooker to medium and leave for 5 to 6 hours.
- If you want to speed things up a bit you can cook it on high for 4 to 5 hours.
- If you want to leave it to cook while you are at work, set it to low and leave it for 6 to 8 hours.
- To thicken the gravy, make a slurry with 1 to 2 tablespoons of cornflour (or cornstarch) and 3 tablespoons of water, set the slow-cooker to high and mix the cornflour slurry into the Trinchado in the slow-cooker. Leave for 10 minutes until the gravy has thickened.
- Transfer the Trinchado to a serving dish (or leave it in the slow-cooker dish), garnish with parsley and serve.
What to serve with beef Trinchado
Beef Trinchado is traditionally served with paprika flavoured French fries and crusty bread or garlic bread, with slices of fresh tomato.
However, there’s nothing stopping you from serving it with a pile of creamy mashed potatoes and a selection of your favourite vegetables.
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FAQ
Trinchado is believed to have been introduced into South Africa by the Portuguese immigrants from neighbouring Angola and Mocambique. The word Trinchado simply means ‘carved’, hence the carved or cut up pieces of meat in the stew.
Pack the cooled stew into a suitable freezer container and freeze for up to 4 months. To use, defrost in the refrigerator and then tip the contents of the container into a saucepan and reheat on the stove.
You could also defrost and reheat in the microwave.
You could prep the Trinchado the night before and leave it in the inner lining of your slow-cooker (covered with the lid) in the refrigerator.
Next morning before you go to work, simply replace it in your slow-cooker and leave it to cook on low for 6 to 8 hours. (It won’t come to any harm if you leave it for longer 🙂 )
The easiest way of making paprika French fries is to buy a bag of good quality frozen chips. McCain’s is the brand I use in the UK.
Spread an even layer of the chips onto a baking sheet and sprinkle liberally with salt and paprika then bake them in a hot oven (200C / 400F) for about 30 minutes.
Turn them with a spatula halfway through the cooking process.
If they haven’t crisped sufficiently after 30 minutes, leave them for a few minutes longer.
If you prefer to make your own French fries, you can simply sprinkle them with salt and paprika when they come out of the fryer.
Pin for later
If you’d like to try this recipe for slow-cooker beef Trinchado, why not save it to one of your Pinterest boards so you can find it easily. Just click on the image below.
Other recipes
If you enjoyed this slow-cooker beef Trinchado, perhaps you’d like to try some of my other meals made in a slow-cooker:
- Beef silverside
- Irish lamb stew with barley
- Roast chicken dinner
- Pork casserole with honey and mustard
- Oxtail stew
- Beef and kidney stew
- Slow-cooker roast chicken dinner
- Braised beef short ribs in red wine gravy – you can make this meal either in a slow-cooker or in a pressure cooker.
The recipe
Slow-cooker beef Trinchado
(Click the stars to rate this recipe)
Equipment
Ingredients
Meat and marinade
- 1 pound / 450 grams good quality stewing beef flank or chuck
- 4 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
- 2 tablespoons cornflour / cornstarch
Gravy
- 4 medium tomatoes coarsely chopped
- 1 large onion peeled, chopped and separated
- 2 cloves garlic peeled and minced
- 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
- ½ cup / 120 ml red wine sub with extra gravy or red grape juice
- ½ cup /120 ml Nando's hot peri-peri sauce or use a mild or medium variety
- 1 cup beef stock or make with a stock cube and water
- ½ teaspoon salt optional
- 1 teaspoon sugar optionl
- 1 to 2 tablespoons cornflour / cornstarch for thickeing
Instructions
- Cut the beef into bite-sized pieces and place into a mixing bowl.1 pound / 450 grams good quality stewing beef
- Add the Worcestershire sauce and the cornflour and stir well to combine.2 tablespoons cornflour / cornstarch, 4 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
- Cover with plastic wrap and leave in the refrigerator for half an hour.
- While the meat is marinting, prepare the rest of the ingredients. Chop the tomtoes and onions and mince the garlic and place them into the slow-cooker.4 medium tomatoes, 1 large onion, 2 cloves garlic
- Combine the stock, red wine, balsamic vinegar, peri-peri sauce, salt and sugar in a measuring jug or similar.1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar, ½ cup / 120 ml red wine, ½ cup /120 ml Nando's hot peri-peri sauce, 1 cup beef stock, ½ teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon sugar
- Once the meat has marinated, arrange it on the vegetables in the slow-cooker and tip in any remaining marinade and pour in the prepared stock.
- Turn on the slow-cooker and cook as follows:Low – 6 to 8 hoursMedium – 5 to 6 hoursHigh – 4 to 5 hours
- To thicken the gravy, make a slurry with a tablespoon of cornflour (or cornstarch) and 3 tablespoons of water, set the slow-cooker to high and mix the cornflour slurry into the Trinchado in the slow-cooker. Leave for 10 minutes until the gravy has thickened.1 to 2 tablespoons cornflour / cornstarch
- Transfer the Trinchado to a serving dish (or leave it in the slow-cooker dish), garnish with parsley and serve with paprika french fries and/or crusty bread.
Notes
- The easiest way of making paprika French fries is to buy a bag of good quality frozen chips. McCain’s is the brand I use in the UK.
- Spread an even layer of the chips onto a baking sheet and sprinkle liberally with salt and paprika then bake them in a hot oven (200C / 400F) for about 30 minutes.
- Turn them with a spatula half-way through the cooking process.
- If they haven’t crisped sufficiently after 30 minutes, leave them for a few minutes longer.
- If you prefer to make your own French fries, you can simply sprinkle them with salt and paprika when they come out of the fryer.
- Score the skin of each tomato on the bottom with a cross.
- Place the tomatoes in a bowl and cover the tomatoes with boiling water.
- Let them stand for two minutes.
- Remove the tomatoes from the boiling water and plunge them into a bowl of cold water to cool them down so that you can handle them.
- Peel the skins away.
Nutrition
I am not a nutritionist. The nutrition information has been calculated using an on-line calculator, and is intended for information and guidance purposes only. If the nutrition information is important to you, you should consider calculating it yourself, using your preferred tool.
I have linked this recipe to #CookBlogShare run by Sisley & Chloe which was hosted by Nancy at NOMSS
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This looks so rich and comforting. I love the flavours you have used.
It’s one of my family’s favourite dishes – I’m guaranteed empty plates whenever I make this 🙂