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.
