Carne guisida is Spanish for “stewed meat” which doesn’t sound particularly enticing, but while I’ve done some great taco lay-outs for dinner before (I make great roasted garlic guacamole IMNSHO) I was somewhat sick of the standard beef mince mixture, I wanted something a bit more substantial.

Enter carne guisida, a Mexican-style beef stew that can be folded into tortillas with cheese and sour cream or just eaten on it’s own.  It’s particularly tasty and a refreshing change if you have a fairly thin Mexican range in the kitchen.  I served this separately in a bowl so it could be spooned onto individual plates, with a bowl of grated cheese and some sour cream and a plate of tortillas for wrapping or sopping up or whatever.

Ingredients

  • 1 kilogram of lean beef, cut to no bigger than an inch dice
  • a tin of diced tomatoes
  • a capsicum
  • two bullhorn chillies
  • an onion
  • two tablespoons of plain flour
  • 1 tsp chilli powder
  • 2 tbsp of cumin
  • 1C of beef stock
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Method

  1. Slice the onion into rings, and fry them in a large saute until they are transparent, then add the beef and stir fry until brown
  2. Combine the flour and the spices in a bowl, then sprinkle over the beef and keep stirring
  3. Chop and add the chillies and capsicum and add the tin of tomatoes, stir and fry for another minute
  4. Add the stock and bring to the boil, then turn down to a bare simmer with the lid on crooked, and simmer for 2 – 2.5 hours until the beef is tender

A lot of the liquid will evaporate and you’ll be left with a tomato-ey gravy.  Serve the stew as a tortilla filling, as a stand-alone stew or as I suppose it’d go well in enchiladas.

 

 

{February 13, 2012} {Tags: , , , , }