Beef Stewed with Peppers, Onions and Tomatoes – Recipe

Name: Beef Stewed with Peppers, Onions and Tomatoes – Recipe
Prep time: 1 h
Cook time: 1 h
Total time: 2 h
Yield: 2
Cuisine: Bulgarian cuisine
Ingredients: Beef 0.5 kg; Sweet or mild peppers 300 g; Onions 2-3; Ripe tomatoes 2; Hot peppers 1-2; Vegetable oil 2 tbsp; Salt, savory, black pepper to taste

A wonderful, tasty dish: beef stewed with vegetables. Not with black pepper or paprika, the way goulash is made, but meat stewed with onions and bell peppers, sweet or only very mildly hot. There are plenty of mild pepper varieties, and their heat is often barely noticeable, which makes them very pleasant to eat.

Stewing is a cooking technique in which various ingredients are cooked with spices in a small amount of liquid (or even in their own juices) for quite a long time over very low heat. By the classic rules, the ingredients may be browned first. Stewing gives dishes a rich flavor and aroma. All sorts of vegetable or meat sautés, beef goulash and many sauces (the famous Bolognese, for example) are made by slowly stewing the ingredients.

Beef with bell peppers turns out exceptionally tasty, whatever the variety. You don't have to use the usual large multicolored peppers. Capsicum, hot or sweet, is the fruit of an annual plant of the nightshade family, a relative of the tomato and the eggplant. What we call the “Bulgarian pepper” is a type of sweet pepper, and Bulgaria grows a great many sweet pepper varieties. You can find kamba, kapia, sivriya, ratund and others. They make an excellent mild appetizer.

The fruits of the mild, or very mildly hot, chorbadzhiyska chushka pepper are very pretty: very long, about 20 cm, thin, strongly curved and even twisted. I don't know whether the name comes from the Bulgarian village of Chorbadzhiysko or from the word “chorba” (soup, a first course), but you will often see it called the chorbadzhiyski (soup) pepper.

Beef stewed with vegetables, made with pre-boiled meat and small or thin peppers, is a very tasty and flavorful dish. Simple spices typical of the Balkans make the meat stewed with peppers wonderfully aromatic. By the way, the dish can also be cooked in individual clay pots.

Ingredients

2 servings

Beef 0.5 kg
Sweet or mild peppers 300 g
Onions 2-3
Ripe tomatoes 2
Hot peppers 1-2
Vegetable oil 2 tbsp
Salt, savory, black pepper to taste

Step-by-step recipe

Beef stewed with vegetables can be made with any sweet or mildly hot pepper. It is better if the peppers are small and compact, so you don't have to cut them up. Cut peppers will most likely overcook and fall apart during stewing. You can always find suitable small sweet peppers at the market or in the store. Small kapia and rotund peppers are common. For this dish I bought some Bulgarian chorbadzhiyski peppers. They are thin and long. Besides, small peppers don't need to be seeded.
Beef turns out tasty if the meat, which is fairly tough, is boiled first and only then stewed with various vegetables. Beef slowly stewed with vegetables is a very tasty and filling dish that goes perfectly with red wine.
Lean beef is preferable: shoulder or plain boneless meat, or even meat on the bone. Since the beef is boiled first, you can use even fairly “old” meat. It becomes tender as it boils, and the beef stewed with vegetables will turn out great.
Pour a few liters of water into a large pot and put in the meat, washed and trimmed of excess fat. Bring to a boil and skim off the foam. Cook the beef at a very gentle simmer, covered. Depending on how tough the meat is, it may take 1-2 hours. Take the cooked meat out of the broth, put it on a plate, cover and let it cool a little. Strain the broth into a separate pot; you will need some of it when stewing the beef with peppers.
Peel the onions and cut them lengthwise into very large wedges, 6-8 per onion depending on size. Heat vegetable oil in a sauté pan and fry the onion until nicely golden and just starting to brown. Do not overcook the onion under any circumstances, or the beef stewed with vegetables will have a noticeable burnt taste.
Cut the slightly cooled beef into large pieces and add to the fried onion. Add 1-2 whole hot peppers without seeding or cutting them. Season with salt and black pepper. Add dried savory to taste or, if you have it, a Bulgarian savory blend such as “trapezna chubritsa”. By the way, savory gives meat dishes a wonderful spicy flavor, so use as much as you like. For example, I added 0.5 tsp of crushed dried savory.
Stirring often, fry the onion and meat for 5 mins, then add the whole sweet peppers. Keep frying for another 5 mins.
Blanch the ripe tomatoes in boiling water, then remove the seeds and skins. Puree the tomato flesh and add it to the beef and peppers. Pour in a little of the remaining broth so there is some free liquid for stewing.
Stew covered for 30 mins at a gentle simmer. Then remove the lid, turn up the heat and let the excess liquid evaporate. The consistency can be anything you like, from a thick soup to a sauté or ragout.
The finished beef stewed with vegetables is served piping hot. If you decide to keep a thin sauce, it is better to serve the meat in deep plates with a rim.
By the way, beef stewed with vegetables is somewhat like beef azu or Bulgarian yahniya, a wonderful dish. Stews are usually recommended to be sprinkled with herbs. That is up to you, but fresh toasted bread goes perfectly with the meat and vegetables, and besides, sauce with fresh bread is always delicious!