Maltese Mystery Ingredient Stew
Dad was a mischief maker – there are stories of him getting an uncle to masquerade as a Health and Safety inspector and “inspecting” the café run by his future in-law family (high risk courting strategy!) … calling a sister-in-law to tell her she had won a sizeable amount of money - if only they could find the raffle ticket they were convinced they had indeed bought … calling my in-laws pretending to be the Maltese police (Pulizija) to tell them we had been involved in an incident … lots of all kinds of nonsense … and the more unwelcome it was, the funnier he would find it!
Malta was a place that we spent a lot of time in when I was growing up and mum and dad would often host evenings of feasting for our family friends there … if it wasn’t a bar-be-que it would be a stew .. or both! Feasting is what both the Irish and Maltese do very well!! It would delight dad to sneak ingredients into the stew that you wouldn’t normally expect to be in there .. and there was one ingredient that forever remained a mystery … pumpkin! Dad would always buy a HUGE wedge of pumpkin (or sometimes a whole pumpkin … and they were MASSIVE!) from one of the roadside vegetable vans that were a familiar presence on many Maltese roads and add it to the stew. By the time the stew had cooked (usually hours and hours of slow, slow simmering) the pumpkin would vanish into the sauce and would add a richness and depth of flavour .. but be almost completely unidentifiable!
He refused to tell people what the secret ingredient it was … I think our friends thought it was some special Northern Irish ingredient that we had taken out with us … but dad would have been amused that they did not recognise that it was one of their own fresh, local grown, delights! I don’t think he revealed the mystery ingredient to many … or if he did they all perhaps thought they were the sole custodian of that secret and never told anyone else that they knew “Leslie’s secret stew ingredient”!
It's hard to give a recipe because there was none ever written … it would have been a collection of what vegetables were available and what meat the butcher had set aside for him! So really … you can use this recipe as a guide rather than a rule … and freely substitute the veg you like / don’t like … but do keep the pumpkin – it’s the mystery magic!
Nicola Reed, Area Manager – North & East Areas, Cruse Bereavement Care Scotland
Serves 4:
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
2 parsnips
4 carrots
500g pumpkin (or any squash would work!)
500 g baby potatoes (or larger ones peeled and chopped into chunks)
a few sprigs of fresh sage
olive oil
1 knob of unsalted butter
800 g stewing steak, cut into cubes
plain flour
2 tablespoons tomato purée
½ a bottle of red wine
285 ml beef stock
To serve (optional)
Lemon
Clove of garlic
a few sprigs of fresh rosemary
1. Preheat the oven to 160ºC/300ºF/gas 2.
2. Peel and roughly chop the onion. Peel and finely slice garlic. Peel parsnips and carrots and cut into rough chunks. Remove skin, deseed and roughly dice the pumpkin. Pick the sage leaves.
3. Heat a little oil and the butter in a casserole pan on a medium heat, add the onion, garlic and sage leaves, then fry for 3 to 4 minutes.
4. Add beef and fry until browned. Sprinkle on flour and cook for few minutes. Add vegetables, tomato purée, wine and stock, then gently stir together. Season generously with black pepper and sea salt.
5. Bring to the boil, place a lid on top, then place in the oven until the meat is tender – sometimes this takes 3 hours, sometimes 4 – it depends on what cut of meat you’re using and how fresh it is. The only way to test is to mash up a piece of meat and if it falls apart easily it’s ready. (You can do this on the hob but it needs to be long and slow and you need to watch for it catching and burning on the bottom!)
6. If not serving for a while you can turn oven down to about 110°C/225°F/gas ¼ until you’re ready to eat.
7. Finely grate the lemon zest, pick and finely chop the rosemary and peel and finely chop the garlic. Mix together and sprinkle over the stew before serving.
8. Serve with crusty bread - Maltese bread (hobz) is one of the best things in the world!!
If you want to go all Northern Irish … you can serve with lashings of buttery mashed potato!!
Of do the double and serve with both! Yes … there are already potatoes in the recipe … If you’re Irish you can never have enough!!