Carbonada Criolla Potjie*
Carbonada Criolla cooked in a potjie; an Argentinian slow-cooked beef dish, adapted.
Carbonada Criolla is an Argentinian dish of slow-cooked beef with an interesting flavour cocktail of spicy and sweet. I’ve adapted it for the South African potjie.
To me, this recipe reads like the kind of potjie I like to make: plenty of aromatic broth, some herbs and spices and a kick of heat, and a balance of deep flavours with something sweet, perhaps some dried fruit…
The component of Carbonada Criolla that gives it its sweetness is a small amount of chopped dried fruit: prunes and apricots. So I went to the shop fully expecting to come back home with both. First surprise: there were no dried apricots (such a veteran staple of Cape cooking, but none). Second surprise: the prices. Have you seen the price of prunes lately? Something like R120 for a large bag. Is dried fruit now the ostrich meat of the fruit industry? As priced-out-of-the-market as nuts?
Anyway, I bought two small packets instead, of prunes and dried apricots, 70 g a packet. That was enough, given that Argentinian recipes call for only 2 or 3 prunes and a similar amount of dried apricots. They did the trick.
One recipe called for “garlic scrapes”, which are the tender stem and bud of a hardneck garlic plant, native to North America, but I substituted garlic chives. If you can get some, default to that ingredient.
Ingredients
800 g stewing beef
3 Tbsp olive oil
4 sprigs oregano
2 sprigs rosemary
4 basil leaves
2 small onions, chopped
3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 yellow pepper, sliced into small strips
3 garlic chives, chopped
1 tsp dried chilli flakes
1 tsp crushed, dried garlic
2 small potatoes, peeled and cubed
70 g prunes, chopped
70 g dried peaches, chopped
1 glass red wine
2 cups vegetable stock
2 x 400 g cans chopped tomatoes
Parsley, chopped
Salt and pepper
1 heaped Tbsp cornflour mixed with 3 Tbsp water
Method
It’s a given that you should have a fire going to have a supply of coals.
Heat 3 Tbsp oil in the potjie, with some coals under it. Add the diced beef and all the herbs, and cook, stirring now and then, until the meat browns and starts to catch at the bottom, about 10 to 15 minutes depending on the level of heat.
Add the chopped onions, garlic, yellow pepper and chives, and the chilli and dried garlic, stir, and cook for a few minutes.
Add the cubed potatoes, dried fruit, wine, stock and cans of chopped tomatoes, season with salt and pepper, cover, and cook gently with coals underneath the potjie and on the lid until the meat is tender, which took, for me, a good four to five hours. This is a slow potjie cook, so keep the coals low, just enough for a gentle bubble. Argentinians keep the pot going for five to six hours, but I think the heat of a potjie is more intense, so it will be a bit quicker.
The sweetness that comes through from the prunes and peaches adds a perfect balance to the spice, and I had a fairly heavy hand with the black pepper and was very happy with the result. So good.
Serve with buttered mielie and rosemary braai bread; recipe coming up later.
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-05-17-whats-cooking-today-carbonada-criolla-potjie/
The follow up: Mielie & rosemary braai bread
Cornbread is often served with the Argentinian beef dish called Carbonada Criolla, a potjie version of which we published in TGIFood on Monday. Here’s a herbed mielie bread that is a perfect accompaniment to it.
Ingredients
1 kg white bread flour
10 g sachet instant yeast
4 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
2 cups lukewarm water (more or less, you need to feel and assess when the dough is right)
2 Tbsp olive oil
Kernels of 1 mielie (corn on the cob)
1 Tbsp rosemary needles, chopped
Method
Have braai coals available, enough to have coals around the base of the pot for an hour, with a few more to go on the lid.
Sift the flour into a large bowl and add the yeast and sugar.
Stir in the salt and add the rosemary needles and corn kernels.
Add lukewarm water a little at a time, while kneading the dough, until it is all combined.
Now add the 2 Tbsp olive oil and knead until the dough forms a ball. Leave it in the bowl and cover with a damp towel. Put it in a warm place to rise for 20 minutes. Knead it for two minutes, form into a ball again and rise in a warm place for 50 minutes, covered with the damp cloth again.
Turn it out into a greased heavy iron pot with a lid, surround the edges of the base with hot coals, put a few coals on the lid, and cook for an hour. Top up the coals as necessary.
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-05-18-whats-cooking-today-mielie-rosemary-braai-bread/
No comments:
Post a Comment