15 Dec spiced beef stew

We love our annual turkey dinner but Christmas cooking isn’t just about the 25^th. There are so many other menu opportunities the week before and the week after. We love serving deeply spiced stews, or roasting vegetables that don’t usually make their way to the Christmas tables.

Spiced Beef Stew (serves 6)

This is one of our favourite dishes to cook for friends, at any time of the year, and is an adaption from a Sarah Buenfeld recipe (bit.ly/sarasbeef). It’s spiced with harissa, cinnamon and coriander, and is laced with almonds, making it a winter warmer with real depth.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons sunflower oil

1 kg beef

1 onion

4 cloves of garlic

25 g of ginger

1 teaspoon of coriander

1 tablespoon of harissa paste

2 tablespoon of ground almonds

1.2l of beef stock

2 cinnamon sticks

1 tablespoon of yogurt

½ teaspoon of harissa paste

Handful of pomegranate seeds

Freshly chopped mint

Method

1. Heat 1 tablespoon of sunflower oil in a large heavy-based pot over a medium heat. Fry the beef in batches until browned. Remove the beef (and any excess liquid) from the pot with a slotted spoon and set aside.

2. Peel and finely dice the onion, garlic and ginger. Add a little more sunflower oil to the pot and fry the onion, garlic and ginger gently for 10 minutes until the onions are translucent.

3. Add the ground coriander and harissa paste. Mix well and fry for a further minute.

4. Return the beef to the pot, mixing with the coriander, harissa and onions. Add the stock, ground almonds and cinnamon sticks. Stir well and bring to a boil. Simmer gently, uncovered, for 2 and a half or 3 hours or until the meat is super tender.

5. Mix the yogurt with harissa in a small serving bowl. Transfer the beef to a serving bowl (or serve it straight from the pot) topped with freshly chopped mint and pomegranate seeds, with the harissa yogurt on the side.

This recipe first appeared in The Irish Independent’s INSIDER magazine on December 11th.