Spanish beef stew with rosemary and olives

We've had roast goose for the last couple of Christmases but this year, as the date approached, none of us were really attracted by the stress of trying to coordinate timing the cooking of a large bird with the process of marshalling ten people to the dining table to eat it. So I decided to make a stew instead. I wanted something with plenty of flavour, with a nice thick sauce and with some hints of Spain. This was what I came up with. (The anchovies don't give a fishy flavour, but just help to intensify everything else.)

Ingredients
3 kg beef
1 bottle of red wine
50g fresh rosemary stalks
plain flour
1 head of celery
2 large onions
6 cloves of garlic
2 red peppers
3 tsps paprika
100g tomato puree
6 salted anchovy fillets
250g of olives, drained and rinsed

Method

1. Cut the beef into  chunks, and place in a large bowl. Add the rosemary, olives and wine, mix well and leave to marinade in the fridge overnight.
2. The next day, drain the meat in a colander, reserving the marinading liquid, rosemary stalks and olives. Leave the meat to dry for a few hours if possible.
3. Brown the meat in batches in hot olive oil (about 0.5 kg at a time, depending on the size of your pan). Dredge the last two batches (about 1 kg of the meat) in flour before frying. (This will help to thicken the sauce of the casserole.) Transfer the cooked meat to a bowl.
4. Meanwhile, transfer the marinading liquid, rosemary and olives to a saucepan, bring to a boil and simmer until reduced by about 1/3. Remove the olives and rosemary. Set aside the olives to serve with the meat if you wnt to.
5. Finely chop the celery, onions, garlic and red peppers, and sweat throroughly in plenty of olive oil in a large saucepan or flameproof casserole dish. When the vegetables are cooked, add the paprika and tomato puree, mix well, and add the reduced marinating liquid, the browned meat (together with any juices), and the finely chopped anchovy fillets.
6. If cooking on the stove top, add 250 ml of water, bring to a very gentle simmer, cover and cook at a very low heat for about 3 hours, until the meat is tender. You will need to be careful that the flour does not burn, so you will need to keep a close eye on the stew, making sure you stir it from time to time, and adding a little extra water if necessary..
7. If cooking in a casserole, preheat the oven to 150oC, cover the casserole dish and cook for about 3 hours, until the meat is tender.

Homemade baked beans

I got back from a great day at the beach and, although Gemma had supper in hand, my creative juices were flowing so I decided to have a bash at making my own baked beans. (I can buy the Heinz variety here, but they are fiendishly expensive and my gastronome kids refuse to eat them anyway.)

Kitchen impro
I wanted something that was sweet, salty and a little spicy, and this was what I came up with. I was pretty pleased, as it was exactly what I had been aiming for. Like all my best kitchen improvisations, I started with a clear idea of what I wanted the final dish to be like, then paused for a few minutes and thought about how to get there. A lot of perfectly competent cooks rarely improvise, and I think part of the reason why is because they get stuck between two extremes: carefully following a time-honoured recipe, or more or less randomly throwing together whatever ingredients they happen to find in their fridge and cupboard. Of course, if you take the second approach then nine times out of ten what you produce will barely be worth eating and you will slink chastened back to your cookbooks, but the solution is just to gather your thoughts before you get going and to think about how the ingredients you use will combine together.

Ingredients
olive oil
2 small onions
2 cloves of garlic
2 tins of chopped tomatoes
4 tsps paprika
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp hot chilli sauce
1 tsp salt
2 tbsps dark soy sauce
2 tbsps honey
3-4 tins of cannellini beans (1200g drained weight)

Method

1. Chop the onion very finely and fry gently in plenty of olive oil. When the onion is done, add the peeled, finely chopped garlic cloves and continue to fry until the onions are just starting to brown.
2. Add the chopped tomatoes, paprika, ginger, chilli sauce and salt, bring to a boil, turn to minimum, cover and simmer for 30 minutes.
3. Add the soy sauce, honey and drained beans, cover and cook at minimum for another 10 minutes or so.

To complete my 'homemade' feeling, I decanted my beans into jars.

Rabbit dhansak

I have mixed feelings about market shopping: it's time-consuming and can be both physically and mentally exhausting, as you struggle to make sure the stallholders don't palm off shoddy produce on you and have to adapt your cooking to what's available. But when I'm in the right mood, I find it really stimulating. I often have great recipe ideas while looking at what's on display, sometimes directly inspired by whatever is laid out in front of me, and sometimes taking advantage of a bit of daydream time while I wait to be served.



When I got back to Spain from Italy the other day, the first thing I did (after frantically feeding the washing machine and hanging up wet clothes) was to pop down to the market. In the fish section, I bought a kilo of clams. And at the butcher's I picked up a beautiful free-range chicken, which I intend to do al ajillo but with the added twist of a pickled lemon, and I also got some pork ribs, which I plan to pressure cook with chilli and ginger. My final purchase was a free-range rabbit, but instead of doing my usual coniglio alla cacciatore, I thought I would do a bit of fusion cooking, so I came up with this rabbit and brown lentil curry. I don't know if this really qualifies as a dhansak or not (usually, I think, a meat curry where the sauce is thickened with red lentils) and I don't care either.

Ingredients
1 onion
4 cloves of garlic
2-inch piece of fresh ginger
6 tablespoons of vegetable oil
4 teaspoons of mild curry powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 free-range rabbit, jointed
250g brown lentils
800 ml of chicken stock
juice of 1/2 lemon
small bunch of fresh coriander

Method

1. Peel and finely chop the onion, garlic and ginger, and puree in a food processor with the vegetable oil.
2. Gently fry the puree in an open pressure cooker, being careful not to burn.
3. When the onion is turning golden, add the curry powder and salt, fry for another 30 seconds, then add the rabbit pieces and fry for a minute or so, turning them so that they become well coated with the onion and spice mixture.
4. Add the lentils, chicken stock and lemon juice, close the pressure cooker and bring up to full pressure (2 rings). Cook for 15 minutes, then cool the cooker under runninng cold water.
5. Open, check for seasoning, add chopped coriander and serve.

Googlecooked!
Googlewhacking is the sport of trying to find an elusive query (two words - no quote marks) with a single, solitary result. Googlecooking is the art of producing a recipe (two-word title - yes quote marks) for which there are no other hits. I give you "rabbit dhansak"!

Clam and potato stew

I'm always intrigued by how certain combinations of food become fixed. It's more obvious in Spain, where there is both a more extensive repertoire of traditional dishes and a more conservative approach to cooking (facts which I guess are related).



I was in the market today shopping for fish and, as usual, not quite sure what to buy when I spotted some nice-looking clams at 6 euros a kilo. I usually just cook clams a la marinera, with paprika and sherry, but I wanted something that would turn them into a one-pot meal. At first, I thought about doing them with rice, but then it struck me that they would be good in a potato stew. In Cadiz, the usual thing to combine with potatoes like this is cuttlefish (papas con choco) but it worked very well with the clams and I will definitely be repeating this one. I think I might also try to work out a curried version with coconut milk and turmeric at some point.

Ingredients

1 head of celery
2 cloves of garlic
olive oil
2 teaspoons of smoked paprika
1 teaspoon of cumin
2 kg of potatoes
1/2 kg of green beans
4 ripe tomatoes
1 teaspoon of salt
1 glass of white wine
1 glass of chicken stock (or replace with fish stock or water)
2 bay leaves
1 kg of clams


Method

1. Clean and chop the celery and garlic, and fry gently in plenty of olive oil.
2. Peel the potatoes and cut them into large chunks. Cut the green beans into 2-inch segments. Cut the tomatoes into large chunks. Wash the clams thorough in plenty of cold water.
3. Once the celery begins to soften, add the paprika and cumin and fry for 30 seconds or so before adding the potatoes, beans, tomatoes, wine, stock, bay leaves and salt.
4. Bring to a boil, turn heat to low, cover and simmer gently until the potatoes are just done.
5. Add the clams, stir well, cover and continue cooking for a few minutes until all of the clams have opened.

Lentils with chorizo and wild mushrooms

I picked up some good chorizos the other day at a birdspotting fair in Tarifa (!!) and decided to cook them with lentils. I also chucked in a pack of wild mushrooms I had brought back from Scotland. (The last packet of wild mushrooms I brought back from my travels - in Italy - ended up as food for moth larvae, so I was keen to use these ones before they met the same fate.)


This is a dish that is perfect for pressure cookers, although make sure you add plenty of liquid, as the lentils soak up a surprising amount. Ideally, they should be almost soupy at the end.

Ingredients
olive oil
2 medium sized onions, peeled and chopped
4 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
500g brown lentils
2 litres of stock
5 fresh chorizos
50 g dried wild mushrooms, soaked in a little hot water
500 g carrots, peeled and roughly sliced
4 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon of salt
2 teaspoons of smoked paprika
1 teaspoon of cumin powder

Method

1. In a pressure cooker, gently fry the onion, adding the garlic just before the onion is done.
2. Add all the other ingredients, including the soaking water from the mushrooms, stir will, cover and close the pressure cooker and bring to a boil.
3. When the pressure has reached the correct level, turn the heat to minimum and cook for 20 minutes.
4. Turn off heat, allow to cool for a little and serve. If you like, you can season with a little vinegar at this point. (Spaniards usually add this individually at the table.)

Carrillada (pig's cheek stew)

Carrillada or pig's cheek is a great cut for stews. It has plenty of flavour and a lovely moist texture too. The term 'pig's cheek' puts a lot of people off, but actually it is really the jaw muscle. I don't see why eating this should be any less appealing than eating a pig's leg or back muscles. Because it has plenty of connective tissue, it needs long cooking but develops a great texture and does not dry out.


The recipe below is deliberately 'rustic', with only a bare minimum of chopping or anything else, and is therefore perfect for children to make. And it's also good because it provides a basic stew recipe which kids can than improvise around, changing the ingredients and flavours as they wish, with only the bare minimum of adult interference.

Ingredients
olive oil
2 onions
3 cloves of garlic
2 teaspoons of smoked paprika
1 kg of carrilada (pig's cheek) - if you can't get it, substitute with any stewing cut
500g of carrots
2 large tomatoes
200 ml of chicken stock (more if not using a pressure cooker)
1 teaspoon of salt
4 bay leaves

Method

1. Peel and roughly chop the onions. Peel and smash the garlic. If using carrillada, it comes in small 'steaks' and can be cooked whole. Peel the carrots but leave whole. Top and tail the tomatoes and cut into quarters.
2. Put plenty of olive oil in a pressure cooker or large saucepan. Add the onions to the oil and fry gently. When they are nearly done, add the garlic and continue frying for a minute or so.
3. Then add the paprika, stir and fry for a few seconds, add the meat, stir to mix, and fry for a few minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients.
4. If using a pressure cooker, put the lid on, heat until the cooker whistles, turn to minimum and cook for 20 minutes. If using a conventional pan, cover and bring to a boil, turn to minimum and simmer for about 2 hours, check the liquid level occasionally.
5. Like all stews, this is improved by being left for a day.

Pressure cooker
Like a lot of British people, I used to have a bit of a prejudice against pressure cookers. (Although oddly enough I remember a flatmate of mine at university having one - not sure that he ever used it, however.) In Spain, they are very popular, and are ideally suited to cooking pulses and wet stews.

They also have another great benefit, which I only realised when we started making this, and that is that they are perfect for use by kids. Sammy actually made this stew from scratch - my only intervention was to peel the carrots (every kid likes having his or her own personal kitchen porter), to do a bit of light supervision and to remember to turn the stew off at the end. You can make the whole dish in one pot, and don't need to worry about heat or liquid levels while cooking, or even to monitor it.

Cuttlefish and potato stew (papas con choco)

Cuttlefish stewed with potato is one of the staples of gaditano cooking. Cuttlefish isn't eaten at all in the UK (unless you're a budgerigar) but it's actually very good. It tastes quite similar to squid, with the same mild slightly sweet flavour, although the texture is different. It is more tender than squid but because the flesh is much thicker, it has a slightly meatier consistency. This dish belongs to the category of peasant and working-class food which involves stretching a little bit of meat (or in this case seafood) with vegetables, pulses or grains. I guess the nearest equivalent in the British isles would be Irish stew.


Ingredients
olive oil
150g onions, peeled and roughly chopped
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely chopped
50g green peppers, roughly chopped
500g of cuttlefish, cleaned and cut into chunks
250g of ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped
750g potatoes, peeled and chopped into chunks
200ml white wine
salt
freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon of sweet paprika
2 bay leaves

Method

1. Put the onions in a large saucepan with plenty of olive oil and fry gently. Once they start to soften, add the garlic and green pepper and fry for another few minutes.
2. Then add the cuttlefish, tomatoes, salt, pepper, paprika and bay leaves, stir well and fry for 5 minutes.
3. Add the potatoes and white wine, bring to the boil, cover, turn heat to minimum and simmer gently until the potatoes are tender. (About 20 to 30 minutes.)

Protein vs. carbs
Perhaps inevitably, as we become richer and our diets have become more protein-heavy the tendency is to up the meat content in such dishes, and I have to admit that my version has slightly less potato than the original recipe I was working from (in Pescados y Mariscos Gaditanos by Carlos Spinola and Manuel Fernández-Trujillo).

Lentil stew with black pudding (lentejas con morcilla)

This is a great winter stew, and really easy to make. You can replace the morcilla with British black pudding in a link, or with good quality sausages. Don’t use orange lentils for it, though, as they will just turn into soup. In Spain, lentils are served in a shallow bowl, with a little bit of vinegar.



Ingredients

olive oil
1 medium-sized onion
4 whole garlic cloves
2 teaspoons of sweet paprika
350g brown lentils
2 medium-sized potatoes, peeled and cut into quarters
2 large carrots, peeled
1 litre of stock (or water)
salt
250g of morcilla

Method

1. Chop the onion roughly, heat in a large saucepan until nearly done, then add the whole unpeeled garlic cloves. Once the onion is translucent, add the paprika, lentils, the quartered potatoes and the carrots. Add the stock, and season with salt.
2. Bring to the boil, reduce heat to minimum and simmer for 15 minutes. Add the morcilla and cook for another 45 minutes, until the lentils are tender.

Mediterranean beef stew

I find that most dishes come out better if I’ve had a bit of time to think about them before I start cooking, and begin with a clear idea of what the end product is going to taste like (and how I will get there). For this one, I deliberately wanted a slightly clichéd combination of Mediterranean ingredients. (I thought about this one when I was being forced by my children to hide under a duvet while they played hide-and-seek. They had told me where to hide, but still took 10 minutes to find me.)



Ingredients

olive oil
1 medium-sized onion
4 whole garlic cloves
1 kg of beef – cut in chunks
2 glasses of red wine
250 g of chopped tomatoes (fresh or tinned)
150 g of halved sundried tomatoes
150 g of black olives
¼ lemon
stock
4 large sprigs of fresh rosemary
salt

Method

1. Chop the onion (but not too small) and separate the garlic cloves (but leave the skins on). Fry the onion in a large saucepan with the olive oil, and when it is nearly done, add the whole garlic cloves.
2. Once the onion is translucent, add the chunks of beef, and fry until the meat has coloured. Pour in the wine, and add the tomatoes and olives, mix well and heat, then add just enough stock to cover and place the quarter lemon in the centre. Bring to the boil, reduce heat to minimum, cover and simmer for about an hour.
3. Taste the sauce for salt, and add a little if required. (The dish may well not need any, depending on how salty your tomatoes, olives and stock are.) Place the rosemary sprigs gently on top of the stew and continue to cook for another hour or so until the beef is tender. Remove the rosemary sprigs before serving.

Green bean and pumpkin stew

This is a really simple vegetable stew, which has a great mix of colours and flavours. The vegetables can, of course, be varied depending on preference and availability.

Ingredients1 large onion
olive oil
4 whole garlic cloves, unpeeled
500g of potatoes
500 g of butternut squash
500 g of green beans
2 teaspoons of paprika
salt
stock (chicken or vegetable) or water
a few springs of mint
400g tin of cannellini beans

Method

1. Chop the onion, and add to a large pot with plenty of olive oil, and put on a low heat. (I usually add the onion before heating the oil, as it reduces the risk of you burning the onions.)
2. While the onion is cooking, wash the potatoes, but leave the peel on, and chop into 4 or 8 pieces, depending on the size. Remove the thick rind from the squash, and chop the flesh into pieces, about the same size as the potato pieces. Top and tail the beans, wash, and chop into 2 or 3 pieces.
3. Once the onion is slightly golden, add the whole, unpeeled garlic cloves and fry for a couple more minutes. Add the paprika, stir and fry for a few seconds, then add the potatoes and squash, and enough stock to just cover. Add some salt. (The amount will depend on how salty your stock is.) 
4. After about 10 minutes, add the green beans, drained cannellini beans and the mint, and continue cooking until all the vegetables are nice and tender.