Latin American Beef Stew with Marinated Red Onion Salad

This is very colourful and has lots of great flavours and textures – ideal for entertaining because all the vegetables are already in it, so all it needs is some plain rice.

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  Serves 4-6

Ingredients
2 lb (900 g) braising steak, cut into 1 inch (2.5 cm) cubes
1 rounded tablespoon cumin seeds
1 rounded tablespoon coriander seeds
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 medium red onions, peeled and roughly chopped
3 medium red chillies, deseeded and finely chopped
6 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
1 heaped tablespoon plain flour
1 x 220 g tin chopped tomatoes
16 fl oz (450 ml) brown ale
5 fl oz (150 ml) red wine
12 oz (350 g) butternut squash, peeled, deseeded and cut into 1 inch (2.5 cm) cubes
8 oz (225 g) fresh sweetcorn (about 2 cobs), or frozen and thoroughly defrosted
1 red pepper, deseeded and roughly chopped into 1½ inch (4 cm) pieces
salt and freshly milled black pepper
For the red onion salad:
1 medium red onion, peeled and thinly sliced into half-moon shapes
grated zest 1 lime and juice 2 limes
3 tablespoons chopped fresh coriander leaves

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Equipment
You will also need a lidded flameproof casserole with capacity of 6 pints (3.5 litres).

This recipe is taken from How to Cook Book Two.

Method

First of all, you need to roast the spices and, to do this, place them in a small frying pan or saucepan over a medium heat and stir and toss them around for 1-2 minutes, or until they begin to look toasted and start to jump in the pan. Now transfer them to a pestle and mortar and crush them to a powder.

Next, pat the cubed meat with kitchen paper, then place the casserole over a high heat. Add 1 tablespoon of the oil and, as soon as it's really hot, brown the meat about 6 cubes at a time, till it's well browned and crusty. As the cubes cook, remove them to a plate and brown the rest in batches. Then heat the other tablespoon of oil and fry the onions, chilli and garlic until they're nicely tinged brown at the edges. Now add the flour and stir this in to soak up the juices. Next, add the spices and return the meat to the casserole, then add the tomatoes, ale and wine, season and stir well, then bring it up to simmering point, put the lid on the casserole and place in the centre of the oven for 2 hours

After that, add the squash, sweetcorn and red pepper, stir again and return the casserole to the oven for a further 40-45 minutes. Meanwhile, to make the salad, mix the red onion with the lime zest, juice and coriander in a small bowl and set aside to marinate for at least 15 minutes before serving, then hand it round separately as a garnish.

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