David Matthewman

I've decided to add occasional recipes as I cook them here. They're not really recommendations so much as records to myself of what I did, so that I can adapt and improve in future. One result of this is that I will occasionally be overly specific in terms of ingredients and kitchen equipment used; if you are attempting to follow them, there's no need to be so precise.



Serves 2. Time 2 hours 30 minutes, but the final 2 hours of that is mostly leaving it alone in the oven.

Ingredients:

• one glug of olive oil


• one onion


• 10 Quorn Swedish meatballs (about half a packet, if you buy packets the size we do)


• one red pepper


• several cloves of garlic


• one teaspoon smoked paprika


• 500ml Hobgoblin Gold beer (don't think the brand's that important, but that's what I used)


• one teaspoon tomato purée


• one carrot


• two smallish potatoes

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 140ºC


2. 'Roughly' chop an onion (I basically cut it into twelfths)


3. In a Le Creuset casserole, heat a glug of olive oil on a medium heat


4. Add the onion and cook uncovered for five minutes, stirring occasionally


5. De-seed and 'roughly' chop the pepper. Peel and finely chop the garlic.


6. Add the meatballs to the onion and cook for a further five minutes, by which time both should be starting to brown. Stir occasionally.


7. Add the peppers and garlic, turn down the heat to low-ish, and cook for a further five minutes.


8. Add the paprika and stir. Then add the beer, and finally the tomato purée.


9. Keep on the heat until it starts bubbling, then cover and transfer to the oven.


10. Leave in the oven, covered, for 1 hour 30 minutes, checking every 30 minutes that it's not boiled dry. If it has, or is close to, add 4 fluid ounces of water.


11. Peel and 'roughly' chop the carrot. Cut the potatoes into eighths.


12. Add the carrot and potatoes to the stew, cover and return to the oven for 30 minutes.
13. 
    
14. Serve. It re-heats well, if you need to.

You may want some bread or similar to mop up the sauce. Just had this for lunch; it was delicious.