At Home With Theresa

Someone asked for an American dish for the Itaki, so I made beef stew and cornbread! My dad loved beef stew and for me cornbread goes really well with it so here goes!

Disclaimer: I used the Itaki Jumbo since my son and I wanted flan again! 😊 The second tier, medium bowl, had another experimental flan recipe! I am trying to make a softer flan so I upped the amount of milk to see if it would work better.

Although it is perfectly fine to just use the Itaki pro and make beef stew and cornbread only, I figured since we’re steaming for a good amount of time, I want to maximize the food created.

*Please note that the word “cup” in any of my electric lunchbox recipe refers to the little itaki cup included with the lunchbox. It holds 40ml.*

Beef stew:

6.5 oz beef, cubed (I used ground beef as that was what I had)

1 tablespoon flour

1/4 teaspoon each of salt and pepper

1 small potato, peeled snd diced

1 small carrot, peeled and diced

3 green beans, trimmed and cut into 1 inch pieces

1 stalk celery, chopped

1 tablespoon diced onions

2 tablespoons tomato paste

2 1/2 cups beef broth

Salt and pepper

Cornbread:

2 1/2 T melted butter

1/4 cup milk

1 egg

1/4 c cornmeal

1/4 cup + 1 T all purpose flour

2 T sugar

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

For the Beef Stew:

Place the beef, flour, salt and pepper in the bottom bowl of the electric lunchbox and mix well. The flour will help thicken your stew. Do not pack the meat down.

Place the potatoes, carrots, green beans, celery, and onions on top of the meat. Add tomato paste and beef broth and mix the ingredients in the bowl. You can add a little more beef broth if you want a runnier stew but remember to leave at least an inch space between the ingredients and the top of the bowl. Place the bowl in the Itaki base.

Now for the CORNBREAD:

Grease the small Itaki bowl or spray with nonstick spray. Mix all ingredients in a separate bowl until combined and pour into the prepared bowl of the Itaki. Place over the prepared beef stew bowl and cover with foil.

For the JUMBO:

If you have an Itaki Jumbo and want a flan for dessert after this meal (like me and my son did!), you can use the second tier for it! Follow the Italicized instructions. Otherwise continue to the Steaming instructions below.

Flan in the Jumbo

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon water

1 egg

1 cup condensed milk

4 cups milk

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

Place sugar and water in the medium Itaki bowl. Caramelize over low heat until you get a golden syrup, swirling constantly by holding the bowl with a stainless tong. Set aside.

In a bowl, mix egg and condensed milk until smooth and condensed milk is incorporated. Add milk, and vanilla, stir to combine. Strain into the bowl with caramel. Cover with foil and place on the second tier of the Itaki Jumbo.

Steaming:

Add 3 cups water to the Itaki base, clip on the top cover and turn it on. Let it steam until it shuts off by itself, around 1 hour 12 minutes.

Open the Itaki carefully, refrigerate the flan if you made one, stir the beef stew and adjust seasoning to taste. Remove the cornbread from the pan and cut into wedges, if desired.

The flan did turn out softer than my previous trials. It is a keeper for me. Chilled, it firmed up a little but still delicious. I will still try to make an all yolk flan soon.

Enjoy your meal!

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