Middle Eastern (-ish) Beef Stew

When my husband asked me what was for dinner, I simply answered “Beef Stew”… slyly leaving off the “Middle Eastern” qualifier. You see, my sweet wonderful husband thinks that he doesn’t like certain exotic flavors, and I didn’t want him to run and hide before he had even tried the meal. However, he knows that he likes anything that involves red meat… and when you describe the dish as a “stew” it just sounds that much more manly. It was delicious and we both loved it. Stay tuned for more lessons from Kate about how to get a man to eat what you want him to :)

Anthony and I were both gone Monday night, so I made this stew in my trusty slow-cooker so that it would be ready when we got home. Slow cookers are wondrous things. Last week I used it to make the infamous Sweet Potato and Black Bean Chili that Meredith and I are both obsessed with. The slow, even cooking of the crock pot deepens the flavor of soups and stews and gives the ingredients plenty of time to “marry”… or come together and blend.

This is really more of a cross-cultural dish with some Middle Eastern spices rather than purely Middle Eastern. You’ll see when you read some of the crazy ingredients I included. It would have been more authentic if I had used lamb but it was just so darn expensive! So I opted for beef. (Somebody make this and use lamb and tell me how it turns out!) This recipe is my version of one from, you guessed it, eatingwell.com. To see the original, click here. It didn’t get awesome reviews so I made a lot of changes and did my own thing and voila, it turned out beautifully.

Note: I’m really bad at following recipes and using exact measurements… which I imagine frustrates some of my more careful and precise readers when they try to follow my directions. Sorry. All I can say to you is:

Trust yourself!

Experiment!

Let go!

And if that doesn’t work, just stick with Meredith’s recipes and ignore my erratic, rambling posts.

Ingredients:

-1 ½ lbs of “bottom round” beef (or lamb shoulder) cut into one inch cubes and trimmed of fat

-28 ounces of crushed tomatoes (I use “Cento” because they’re high quality and taste good and because thir commercials are so dorky but yet so cute… I tend to fall victim to clever marketing schemes.)

-1 bunch of fresh spinach (I use this instead of the packaged baby spinach because I think it tastes just as good and it’s significantly cheaper)

-14 ounces (1 can) of organic garbanzo beans (chickpeas! My fave.)

-1 small yellow onion, diced (cut into little squares)

-1 bunch of leeks, sliced and cleaned. We’ll discuss this later.

-1 large lemon

-2 heaping tablespoons of olive tapenade… just because I had it in my fridge and I wanted to.

-¾ a cup of homemade veggie stock… or whatever kind of stock you have. Beef or chicken stock would be delish.

-5 cloves of garlic, minced (that means you cut it up as small as you can!)

-About 5 teaspoons of ground cumin… maybe a little more.

-About 2 tablespoons of ground coriander… maybe a little less.

-About 2 tablespoons of ground turmeric… you get the idea.

-¼ teaspoon of smoked chipotle chili powder (see I told ya… “cross-cultural”)

-Crushed red pepper to taste. We like it spiiicccyyy in my house.

-2 bay leaves

-1 cinnamon stick

-Extra Virgin Olive Oil

-Kosher Salt

-Freshly ground black pepper

Heaven help me. That is a lot of ingredients. I didn’t really realize that before now.

Directions:

1.Put your cubed meat into a large mixing bowl. Drizzle it with a little olive oil, just enough to coat. Sprinkle over it 4 teaspoons of cumin, 1 tablespoon of ground coriander, 1 tablespoon of the turmeric, the ¼ teaspoon of chipotle chili powder, and a couple of dashes of crushed red pepper, salt, and pepper. Mix it all together with clean hands until all the meat is fully coated. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge to marinate while you continue on. At least 30 minutes, but the longer the better!

2.Dice your onion, set it aside. Slice and clean your leeks. Have we talked about this before? Leeks are a vegetable in the onion family with a mild, lovely, unique flavor. Only use the white and the light green parts (save the rest for your stock!). Cut off the root and the dark green stems. Slice the remaining, edible part into thin discs and then put them in a bowl filled with water. Because leeks have lots of layers, they have lots of dirt in between those layers. By putting them in water, the dirt sinks to the bottom and the leeks float to the top, enabling you to scoop them out all nice and clean.

3.Dry off your leeks with a kitchen towel. Put them in a large sauté pan with the diced onion. Drizzle with a little olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Sauté over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the onion and leek are ¾ of the way cooked. They should be soft and beginning to turn translucent. Add your minced garlic and cook for one more minute. Transfer them to your slow cooker and let them hang out (but don’t turn it on yet!)

4.In the same pan you just used, bring the tomatoes and broth to a simmer over medium high heat. Add some more of your spices: coriander, turmeric, cumin, salt and pepper. As much as you want. Stir it around. Pour it on top of the leeks in the slow cooker.

5.Add your meat. Add your olive tapenade. Add your bay leaves and cinnamon stick. Cover and cook until the beef is tender: either 3 ½ - 4 hours on high heat or 6 ½ - 7 hours on low.

And just before serving…

6.Drain and rinse all the yucky sodium off the chickpeas. Mash ½ of the peas with a mortal and pestle and add it to the stew. This will thicken it a bit. Throw in the remaining whole chickpeas, too.

7.Rinse off a couple of handfuls of your spinach, cut off the stems and add it to the stew. This is really a “to taste” kind of thing… put in as much as you like. Remember, spinach is full of vitamins! Let it fully wilt if you like it like that. Me, I prefer a half-wilted spinach leaf.

8.Squeeze in the juice of the lemon. This will lift the flavor of the stew to the realm of the angels and make you die of happiness.

I know that picture up there doesn’t look that appetizing. How do you make stew look pretty? I just don’t know. Trust me, though, it’s good. And now I believe that I can take the prize for the absolute longest recipe ever. If you actually read this far, bless your heart. You’re a good friend.