Spanish Beef Stew

Estofado or Beef Stew is a great hearty meal to have on a cold winter’s day or evening as it will warm you through. It is important to keep the carrots reasonably large otherwise they will melt into the stew. Try to use potatoes that will stay in their chunks and not become powdery. I use food colouring but this is purely aesthetic so you don’t need to if you don’t want to.

Ingredients

Serves 4

• 3 tablespoons of olive oil
• 500g stewing beef
• 250g carrots, peeled and cut into large chunks
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 3 tomatoes, skinned and chopped
• 1 small tin of peas or a handful of fresh peas
• 1 tablespoon of paprika
• 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon of flour
• 500g of potatoes peeled and cut into large chunks
• 150ml of white wine
• 250ml of beef stock
• 150ml of water
• salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• saffron or yellow food colouring

Cooking Method

Heat half the oil in a large, flameproof cooking pot. Put the meat in the hot oil and brown.

In a small frying pan heat the rest of the oil, add the onion and garlic and fry for about 5 minutes. Add the flour and the paprika and fry for 5 minutes more being careful not to burn this mix.

Add the onion mix to the meat pot, add the white wine, stock and water and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and gently simmer this for about an hour and a half.

Add the carrots, chopped tomatoes and a little saffron or a teaspoon of yellow food colouring to the pot and continue gently cooking for about 25 minutes. Then add the potatoes, the peas a little more beef stock if necessary and cook for another 20 -25 minutes until the potatoes are cooked.

Serve it with some crusty bread.