Estafado español - Spanish Stew, a Pinedo recipe

It is time for another Pinedo recipe!  If you are new to this blog, I'm cooking from Encarnación Pinedo's El cocinero español cookbook, published in 1898.  Her recipes show up on this blog and one dedicated just to her recipes, found here:  The Spanish Cook Without Equal.

Today I am making a stew for dinner, and I chose the one on pages 103 - 104.

My Translation

My Redaction

2 1/2 pounds boneless beef bottom round roast

olive oil for browning the meat

1 pound ham, cubed

1 pound pearl onions, stemmed and peeled

1 1/2 teaspoons chopped garlic

1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves

1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped after the stems are removed

1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon pepper

1/4 teaspoon cloves

1 cup red wine (I used cabernet sauvingnon)

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

I only used one piece of the beef.  That is what fit in the slow cooker.

Cut beef into eating-sized cubes, about 1 inch by 1 inch or a little smaller.

Heat oil in a skillet.  Add beef in batches, stirring often to get the pieces browned.

Put each batch into a slow cooker.

Add all the other ingredients in the slow cooker.

Mix well.

Cook on low for 4 to 5 hours.

Cool, refrigerate, and remove the solid fat.

Reheat to serve.

My Notes

I cut off a lot of the excess fat on the beef.  There wasn't much and I didn't try to get it all off, just the majority.  Then I cut the meat into cubes of a sort.

Pinedo didn't state to brown the meat, but I suspected that was the purpose.  Otherwise I didn't see a need for adding fat to the pan.  Browning does make for a better flavor and presentation.  Since I had so much meat to brown and you don't want to crowd the pieces in the skillet, I used two skillets at one time.  I didn't measure the oil used -- I just put in enough with each batch so that the meat wasn't sticking to the pan.  

Honestly, the most tedious part of making this dish was trimming and peeling all the tiny onions.  I chose pearl onions because Pinedo had specified whole onions.  That was the only way I could imagine having individual servings without someone getting stuck with a massive onion in their bowl or removing the onions before serving.  It helps to have a bowl to hold the peeled onions and another bowl to hold the trimmed ends and peels, while you work over a cutting board. Although now that I think of it, I've seen old recipes with one whole onion (regular size) that had cloves stuck in it.  If that was her intent, I didn't pick up on it.

Perhaps she did not intend for one entire pound of ham in this stew, but that is what I had so I used it all.  The cubes were smaller than those of the beef.  Notice there is no salt called for; I think adding ham is her way of getting salt into the stew.  (Or she just assumes we will add salt at the end, "to taste.")

She specified wine or vinegar.  I chose to use both because I like the flavor a red wine brings and the brightness an acid adds to a sauce.

A slow cooker is the closest thing we have to cooking slowly over hot coals.  It can really do a good job getting the flavors blended and having the meat turn out tender (without having to tend a fire).  My frustration is usually that I overcook the meat, which is never appealing to me.  So despite the slow cooker books advising to cook beef stews for 8 to 12 hours on low, I chose to go for 5 hours.  At this time, the beef was perfectly tender and not overcooked.  I could probably have stopped it at 4 hours, which is why I listed a range in the redaction.  Maybe my slow cooker cooks hotter than the average one?

The onions because I peeled each and every one!

Browning in small batches.

Everything but the liquids.  Stir to combine.

Cooked. The orange is the ham, though it looks like carrots.

The Verdict

I served the stew with cooked shell macaroni on the side, so people could put the pasta in their bowl and stew on top of or next to it. Pinedo has several recommendations in her book to serve stews with macaroni.

Other dishes in the meal were a sweet potato-apple souffle (see the recipe by clicking here) and a side salad with spring mix, chopped apples and persimmons, pecans, pomegranate arils, and goat cheese.  It was dressed with a pomegranate molasses-based vinaigrette.

The primary comment was "the beef is so tender!" and it was. For a simple stew that was basically beef, ham, and onions, it was tasty!  One guest taster who does not like cinnamon could taste it - it was not off-putting but not her favorite.  Those of us who like cinnamon loved the sauce flavors.  No one spice or herb dominated -- it was a good blend.  

My guest taster who loves beef thought was it very good and had seconds.  

Everyone wished the sauce was thick so it was more like a gravy that would stick to the pasta and meat instead of running to the bottom of the bowl.  

I liked the whole stew and the sauce flavor blend.  The texture was fine.  I think I would rather serve it over mashed potatoes if the sauce wasn't thickened.  When I had the leftovers, I thought I really liked having a lot of broth with the ingredients and no pasta, so it was more of a soupy-stew.  Then I got to taste more of the broth, which was a good thing.

Success!

Worthwhile doing it again as it is so easy to prepare and cook.  Making it in advance is a good idea because reheated stews are always better.

Baked Ham in Pastry with Figs

After making liquamen (fish sauce) in the previous post, I perused my Cooking Apicius (by Sally Grainger) book looking for a recipe or two that I wanted to try.

ISBN 1-903018-44-7

One that caught my attention did not use liquamen as anything more than an optional seasoning but I wanted to try it anyway.

Baked ham in pastry with figs (page 62)

1 kg piece of gammon, pre-soaked if necessary
5 dried figs
3 bay leaves
250 g plain white flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil
100 ml water
100 g set honey
olive oil for brushing
fish sauce, or salt and honey for seasoning

Cover the gammon in cold water, add the figs and bay leaves and bring to the boil.  Simmer for 20 minutes per 500 grams plus an extra 20 minutes.  Remove from the heat and cool in the water.  

While it is cooling, sieve the flour and salt together into a bowl and add the oil and the water gradually to form a dough.  Knead until smooth and pliable.  This amount of dough should cover at least a two-kilo joint so adjust the amount to suit the size of your joint.  

Cut the dough in half and roll one portion out into a large thin sheet.  Follow the method in the recipe for tracta on page 37.*  The pastry sheet should resemble that used for apple strudel rather than filo and the thicker edges of the sheet should be trimmed before you begin to wrap the meat.

Place the meat on a board and remove the skin.  Score the fat with a knife right through to the flesh to create a criss-cross pattern.  Spread the honey over the fat and into the cuts.  Spread it over any surfaces of the lean meat too.  

Brush your first pastry sheet with olive oil  and lay the meat at one end.  Roll the meat up in the dough, fold over the edges to make a parcel, and brush its exterior with more oil.  Trim away any excess pastry.

Roll the other half of the dough into a sheet and brush its upper surface with olive oil.  Wrap the meat again, this time tracking the minimum amount of excess dough under the joint.  Brush the exterior with more oil.  

Bake in a medium oven (375 degrees F, 190 degrees C, gas 5) for 1 hour until the pastry is crisp and light brown.  Remove and allow to stand for 10 minutes.  

Strain 250 ml of the cooking liquor into a small pan and season with a little fish sauce or salt if desired, and a little honey. Taste and adjust the balance of flavors.  Carve thick slices of meat and spoon a little of the liquor over them.  Serve it forth.

*To paraphrase these directions, you would roll the dough, turn it over, roll it more, and repeat until very thin.  Do not push from the center but use brisk "back-and-forth" motion at the edges.  Make it as thin as possible without it tearing.

My Notes

Gammon is a hind leg of pork that is cured like bacon by dry-salting or brining.  It is sold uncooked.  The difference between it and ham is that ham is already cooked.

I do not know of any place in my area that sells gammon.  Ham is easy to obtain and that is what I used.  However I was concerned about the amount of cooking time called for in the recipe as I did not want to overcook the already cooked ham.  So I shortened the amount of time simmering in the water to 30 minutes.

It took about 15 minutes of kneading to get the dough smooth.  Then I let it rest while the ham finished cooling and the dough's pliability improved because of it.   I rolled it out to what I thought was very thin (I could read through it) then used my hand to spread the oil on its surface.

Note that when you remove the ham from the simmering liquid you want to keep that liquid for later (that is the "cooking liquor" mentioned for the sauce).

My honey was runny, not set (solid), and that created a problem in keeping it on the ham.

The second layer of dough made a nice, neat little package of the whole thing.  It looked great!

It cooked about an hour in order to get the dough browned.

The Verdict

Meh.

I will call this a success but not anything glorious.  I don't think there is anything wrong with Ms. Grainger's recipe and feel that the problems were all mine from making too many changes.

The shortened cooking time did not appear to adequately flavor the ham with anything more than a light herbal scent from the bay leaves.  The figs did not seem to add anything at all although the water and the ham's exterior became darker.  The bay flavor was nice but weak.

The runny honey did not add anything to the tasting experience.  Ms. Grainger says, "The meat finishes cooking in its case while retaining the juices, which caramelize with the honey -- wonderful!"  My already-cooked ham did not have any juices and the honey was just a thin layer.

I probably could have gotten the dough layers thinner.  I thought they were thin enough and I even baked the scraps to see what they would be like as crispy.  They were very tasty but the wrapped ham layers were tough and dry.  Only the parts that were absolutely thin were pretty good.

The cooking liquor's flavor was weak and watery, so I added in about two tablespoons of liquamen and then reduced it by about 1/3 on the stove.  This tasted pretty good but only added a little bit to the ham's flavor.  It did soften and moisten the crust.  If I had a weak liquor again, I would reduce it first and then add the liquamen.

My guest taster thought it was fine.  I thought the ham was fine but not much different from the ham as it was purchased and the crust was okay.

I really liked the concept, though, and would love to try it again some time using a piece of uncooked pork, like a tenderloin or roast.

I looked around the Internet to see if I could acquire a gammon and found I would have to import it at a cost of around US $80 before shipping fees.  I will pass on this!

Minutal Ex Praecoquis -- Ham and Apricot Ragout

I recently acquired The Roman Cookery of Apicius by John Edwards.  I already have some other cookbooks on the Roman Empire era but this one seemed more substantial and possibly more accessible for modern cooks.

ISBN 0-88179-008-7

What I like best about it is that it offers a translated version of ten of the books (chapters) of Apicius' work along with a modern adaptation for most of the recipes.  Some of the adaptations bothered me a little; for example Mr. Edwards suggests green beans, which to me is a New World bean.  I think the right substitution would be fava (broad) beans, which were used before Columbus brought back New World beans.

This book offers quite a few recipes that caught my interest, and this one fit in with what I already had in the house.

Original translation:

Minutal Ex Praecoquis

Into a cooking pot, put olive oil, stock, wine, dry chopped shallots, and a cooked leg of pork chopped into squares.  When these are cooked, grind pepper, cumin, dried mint, and aniseed [in a mortar].  [Over these seasonings] pour honey, stock, raisin wine, a little vinegar, and liquid from the ragout.  Blend.  [Cook.]  [Pour over the pork.] Add pitted apricots and heat until they are completely cooked.  [Add them to the ragout.] Break pasty into the dish to thicken it.  Sprinkle with pepper and serve.


Modern adaptation (given in two parts):

Ham and Apricot Ragout (page 93)

1 pound cooked ham, diced
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 cup pork stock
1/4 cup white wine
1/4 cup shallots, chopped

In a casserole, put ham, olive oil, stock, wine, and shallots.  Cook, covered, in the oven for 1 hour.

Tasty at this stage!

Sauce:
pinch each of whole pepper and cumin seed
1 sprig mint
pinch of aniseed
1 tablespoon honey
1/4 cup pork stock
1/4 cup sweet raisin wine or muscatel
1 teaspoon wine vinegar
1/4 cup casserole liquid
10 fresh apricots (or dried, presoaked in water)
flour
ground pepper

To make the sauce, in a mortar, grind pepper with cumin, mint, and aniseed.  Combine with honey, stock, sweet wine, vinegar, and liquid from the casserole.  Bring the sauce to a boil and add to the ragout for the last 15 minutes.

When ragout is nearly done, take the apricots, divide in half, and pit them.  Add them to the casserole and cook together for 5 minutes. Finish by thickening with flour.  Serve with a sprinkling of pepper.

My Notes

I had no pork stock so I used instant chicken broth.

The recipe did not specify the oven temperature so I decided on 275 degrees F.  It seemed like the purpose was to slowly cook the shallots and to allow the flavors to mingle.

The ham, shallots, and liquids in the casserole smelled wonderful while it was cooking!

I used dried mint as per the original recipe and guessed about how much a sprig would be when dried.

It was amazing to find out that, in my large collection of spices, I had no aniseed.  Fortunately fennel is a good substitute so I used that. (Thank you, Cook's Thesaurus!)

Try as I might I could not find muscatel or raisin wine locally, so I used moscato, a sweet, slightly sparkling white wine and just hoped it would taste right.

Apricots are not currently in season so I used 20 dried halves and soaked them while the casserole was in the oven.

After the casserole had cooked for an hour, I made the sauce and added it to the casserole.  Then I set the timer for 15 more minutes.

The dried apricots made me think I would need to cook them longer than the five minutes given for fresh ones, so I put them into the casserole in the last 5 minutes of sauce and checked them when the timer buzzed.  They did not appear very tender and, following Apicius' advice, put them in for another 30 minutes to make sure "they are completely cooked."

At the beginning of the apricot's 30 minutes, I mixed about 2 tablespoons of flour with a little of the casserole liquid until it made a smooth, thick batter.  Then I added it to the casserole to thicken the dish.

The Verdict

Success!

Very tasty -- the spices and mint blended together to make a savory sauce, the shallots were nearly melted into the sauce, the ham chunks were tender and flavorful.  The apricots were, surprisingly, a background accent.  I thought they would stand out more but they did a great job of accenting the ham and broth.

If (when!) I make it again, I would cut the apricots up into quarters just to increase the odds of getting a piece with each spoonful of ham.

My only mistake was using the instant chicken broth as it made the dish too salty for me.  My guest taster loved it as it was.  But I thoroughly enjoyed it both at dinner with a green salad, buttered sourdough bread, and red wine, and for lunch the next day with crackers.

I would make this again and plan better on the broth.  I recommend it with enthusiasm!

Yum.  Give it a try.