Miss Ellie Creations: How to Cook Stew and How Not to Woo a Man

I was talking with Mr Ellie the other day about people who tell me that they "aren't a natural cook/baker" (having had 2 people say that to me this week alone!) and I'm never really sure what to say in return - to me, cooking is a very natural thing, its just a process and if you use a recipe, follow the instructions then what can go wrong...?! Then I remembered how many times I have completely ruined something that I've been cooking.... Mr Ellie jokes that I cook everything on the maximum possible gas setting and that everything done in the microwave takes exactly 5 minutes (doesn't it?!?!). Needless to say, I am regularly setting off the smoke alarm and have been known to set fire to a jacket potato in the microwave (although on that occasion I had put it on for 15 minutes so I'm blaming deviating from my principals of microwave cooking on that one!).

Of course, Mr Ellie doesn't have much room for criticism - when I met him, he told me that he didn't cook at all, with the exception of omelettes (which to be fair he does do very well) so I knew it was up to me to do the cooking. The first meal we had together was a takeaway and then the next meal was one of his omelettes. So, as the 'cook' in the partnership, I was lagging behind - so I offered to cook for him... what happened next has gone down in the history of our relationship as "the meal we don't EVER cook again" and really shows Mr Ellie's devotion to me. I did what you should NEVER do for the first meal you cook a prospective boyfriend - I tried a new recipe. Worse, I decided to do a diet-friendly recipe and something that I'm not all that keen on - fish pie. Said fish pie also included Mr Ellie's nightmare - vegetables - and our mutual nightmare food - mackerel. Why, oh why, oh why??!? To this day, I cannot fathom my reasons for making this vile concoction and yes, I know that many people enjoy fish pie and to be fair, I have had one or two really lovely fish pies since. However, none of them included low fat creme fraiche (which split) or mackerel (which is just disgusting). Amazingly, Mr Ellie and I are still together despite this abomination, although I'm pretty sure the wedding vows will have to include a promise to never cook fish pie ever again!

Anyway, disasters aside, I believe that cooking isn't something that should be seen as difficult and so after hearing the "I'm not a natural cook" statement again, I promised that I would post up a recipe. I was asked for a recipe for a stew and one of my favourites is goulash - a lovely smoky, meaty stew/soup from Hungary. The key to goulash is the smoked paprika - if you can find a really good quality one it will make all the difference. I have to say that most supermarket brands just don't cut it, you might as well stick to using regular paprika. I have some oak smoked paprika that I bought at the Harrogate Good Food Show a couple of months ago and its by Fox's Spices (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Foxs-Spices-Ltd/281218831923640 no website, but they do mail order). It is the most delicious, smoky paprika and I am currently a little obsessed with it!

So, on with the recipe -

Ingredients:
3lb beef*
oil for frying
1 large onion (red or white), diced as fine as you can
2 carrots, diced as small or large as you like
2 red peppers, diced (keep them reasonably chunky)
2 large garlic cloves
2 tablespoon smoked paprika
1 tablespoon caraway seeds - I keep these whole but you can grind them if you like
1 generous tablespoon tomato puree
Stock or water (around 1-2 pints) - I use homemade chicken stock and a beef stock pot (one of the Knorr ones) but if you don't have pints of chicken stock hanging around like me, then water and a beef stock cube is fine.
2 large Potatoes
Sour cream and chunks of crusty bread to serve

*I use 2lb beef skirt and 1 lb braising steak, both of which I get from my butcher. Skirt is the belly meat and needs quite a bit of cooking, but will break down beautifully in this stew to give a real depth of flavour. It is probably one of the cheapest cuts of beef so makes this a very economical dish. Shin works as well but if you can't get either, just get braising steak. I tend to use some braising steak in this recipe as it keeps its shape, so helps with the textures.

1. First off, dice your beef into chunks around 2cm square (but go bigger if you like) and get a couple tablespoons oil heating up in a large casserole pan. You want to get it nice and hot. Then fry off your beef. It will stick but don't be afraid, this is good - it helps with the caramelisation process and will loosen. You want to see some nice dark brown bits on the meat and on the pan. It will likely get a bit smoky but keep going, trust me! Its best to do the meat in small batches so that the meat browns (too much in the pan causes a build up of liquid and the meat steams, this doesn't give it the best flavour or texture).

2. As each batch of meat is browned, take it out and put it in a bowl to one side. Then heat a tablespoon more oil and add your onions to the pan...

3. ...followed by the carrots...

4. ...and the red peppers...

5. Stir these around, scraping up all the stuck-on bits of meat from the bottom of the pan. Turn the heat down after a few minutes to prevent the vegetables burning. You need to cook this for around 5-10 minutes to get the vegetables softened.

6. Now crush two cloves of garlic and add to the pan - adding the garlic now, rather than when you start cooking the vegetables, ensures that it won't burn (which makes it bitter). You can crush your garlic or just slice it/chop it finely. Technically, the way you chop the garlic affects the flavour but as its cooked for so long here, I find it doesn't make a massive amount of difference to the overall dish.

7. Next you want to add in two tablespoons of smoked paprika and one of caraway seeds - this is my amazing oak smoked paprika from Fox's Spices and also a couple of shots of my little measuring cup and my spice container that I keep the paprika in, just because I love them both and want to show them off!

8. Cook the spices for a couple minutes, stirring continuously to make sure they don't burn. Then add in a good dollop/squeeze of tomato puree (around about a tablespoon but accuracy isn't too important here)...

9. ...followed by the stock. You want to add enough stock to cover the meat and vegetables.

10. Stir this all around and leave to stew gently for about 2-3 hours. Keep checking it and stirring it occasionally. Top up the liquid if it looks like its getting low. Once the meat is beautifully tender, add in the diced potatoes and cook for around 30 minutes or until they are soft. The goulash is ready to serve - traditionally it is served with a dollop of sour cream and some crusty bread.

I don't have a picture with the potatoes or a beautifully staged bowl with cream, parsley and bread etc. because a) this was still cooking at 9pm last night so we didn't have it for tea and b) because this makes such a big batch of stew, I actually don't cook the potatoes in it at this point. When we are going to eat the stew, I take enough for us and then add the potatoes and cook them up - I find that if the potatoes are reheated in the stew, they break down too much.

So, instead of a picture of the finished stew, you can have pictures of the three terrors who were running around my feet whilst I was cooking this (ever hopeful that a bit of meat gets 'accidentally' dropped!)