Red wine stew
This version of beef stew isn’t a Middle Eastern dish, but it’s certainly Mediterranean — a Spanish staple (estofado de buey) that you would learn at any decent cooking school in Madrid. That makes it a fitting for these rather grim times. But it’s also apt for the current moment for three other reasons.
One, the ingredients should be relatively easy to source. If you have a half-drunk bottle of red wine that has now gone to vinegar, for instance, you already have one of the main ingredients. Most of the other items are still supermarket staples.
Secondly, the secret to success for this dish is cooking it for an incredibly long time at a reduced temperature. Ideally, in other words, the chef needs to be locked down.
Finally, it’s a fantastic meal. This I can attest to having cooked it again this past Sunday night. The sophisticated finish is much more than its humble parts.
This recipe is for a stove, but you can get the same finish putting it into a casserole dish, with the lid on, and cooking at 150 degrees celsius for three hours.
INGREDIENTS
Few tablespoons of olive oil
1 large onion
1 red pepper
1 carrot, peeled and chopped
1 leek, trimmed and chopped (or a stalk of celery)
1 tomato, chopped (or four tablespoons of canned chopped tomatoes)
1kg diced beef (or lamb)
2 cups of red wine
1 teaspoon of sugar
2 bay leaves
METHOD
Heat a few tablespoons of oil, and add in the onion, pepper, carrot and leak and sauté for half an hour, allowing them to brown a bit. Season with salt and pepper, add the tomato and cook for a few minutes more.
Meanwhile, add a bit of oil to a heavy metal saucepan and brown the beef in batches, lifting them out when each is done and adding them to the vegetables. Then return them to the heavy metal saucepan, add in the wine and some water to cover everything. Sprinkle the sugar and add in the bay leaves.
Cook everything together at the lowest possible simmer for three hours.
Serve with mashed potatoes and a side salad.
Serves 6