Seville Orange Stew

This stew is a real winter one – powerful, robust, tasty and concentrated. Containing potatoes, there will be no need to offer a vegetable with it. Leftover juices make the start or addition to a soup. 

The zest of one Seville orange, with its bitter juice, is enough to give the stew such a distinctive taste. Because of the seasonal bitter orange crop, the dish is a late winter’s one.

The time taken to cook this stew on top of the stove or in the oven will depend on the meat used. But allow an hour at least or, if using mutton, for instance, two to three hours.

SEVILLE ORANGE STEW

You will need:

Meat of your choice

A Seville orange

A bottle of any red wine

Onions

Garlic

Potatoes

Ginger root (optional, but gives punch and crunch)

Pepper and salt

Flour

Oil

Gravy browning (for looks, but not necessary)

Oxo cubes or stock cubes (I favour Oxo for this dish)

In oil, cook two chopped onions and the peeled cloves from a whole head of garlic.

Add finely chopped peeled ginger root.

When the onions start to brown add a dessert spoon of flour and stir.

Add the chopped meat and turn it all around.

Put in the juice from the Seville orange and all its zest – which I shave off with a sharp, thin bladed knife, chopping up the result.

Pour in the entire contents of a bottle of red wine. Stir again.

Add pepper and salt and several pulverised Oxo cubes (or stock cubes). I add a little gravy browning.

Cover with cubed potatoes.

Cook slowly on top of the stove or in the oven for an hour at least, whatever the meat – longer for tougher meat.

Keep an eye on the liquid content, adding boiling water as necessary if it appears to be drying out.

That’s it.