Spanish Supermarket Stew

 

Well, that's my name for it.  When we lived in Spain, we used to do a big shop at Carrefour hypermarket, once in a while.  Carrefour is so big that we often spent several hours there and stopped for lunch.  One of my favourites was the beef stew and I think it was a little like this.

 

 

Ingredients:

Chunks of beef for stewing

1 large onion, peeled and chopped

4 cloves of garlic peeled and chopped, or if you really like garlic, put a whole bulb cut in two halves.

A small tin of tomato puree

Olive oil for cooking

A red bell pepper, cleaned and sliced

Salt and black pepper

Beef stock

3 teaspoons of balsamic vinegar

A jar or tin of pre-cooked peas and carrots

1 tablespoon of gravy granules with 200 ml of water

Method:

Cook the beef in a pressure cooker if you have one

Fry the onion and garlic in olive oil (large saucepan)

Add the tomato puree, cooked beef, salt and pepper, vinegar and gravy made up with the water.  Add a beef stock cube and more water if necessary.  When everything is soft, add the red pepper, peas and carrots.  Adjust the thickness of the sauce with more or less stock.

Serve with either a baguette to dip or paprika potatoes sliced in the oven on a tray, cooked for about an hour on 180C.  Or Yorkshire pudding goes nicely with the stew.