Spoon food
Nanna Lena's Corned Beef Stew recipe
I can’t remember if it was a bowl of lentejas (lentils) or caldo de papas (potato stew) that my lovely Aunty Juani made one day when I was living in Spain. We were sitting at the table for lunch and she’d been cooking it during the morning. Our dishes were filled up to the brim with the steaming broth and a basket of freshly baked rolls sat nearby on the wipe-clean tablecloth of the kitchen table. Spoons at the ready, we ate the lot, with the juices mopped up with bread for good measure. She told me that I must like ‘comida de cuchara’. I wasn’t quite sure what she meant, even though I’d translated it in my head to ‘spoon food’. She explained that it meant those types of meals you ate from a bowl with a spoon, typically food of paupers: stews, soups, casseroles, porridges. I told her that this was one of my favourite sorts of food, and that it reminded me of home, where both my nans always seemed to be cooking up some kind of stew to ‘make me big and strong’.
I guess the closest trans-creation for ‘comida de cuchara’ might be ‘one-pot’. Although, as much as a love a one-pot dish for ease, flavour and lack of washing up, I’m not sure it has quite the same ring to it or such a glorious meaning as ‘spoon food’. Spoon food conjures up warmth and nourishment and all those lovely things that don’t take much chewing, but it also makes me think of curative chicken soup when you’re poorly, making train or plane motions with baby food on a teaspoon, and taking a cheeky taste of something out of the pan bubbling away on the stove that you have to blow on too cool down enough before swilling it around your mouth a few times as well so it doesn’t burn your throat.
Talking of teaspoons, I insist on a teaspoon rather than a dessert or soup spoon to eat stuff from a dish or bowl: curry, porridge, trifle. I’m not sure if it tastes better or just lasts longer – probably both.
The Recipe
Nanna’s corned beef stew
Reading some message boards the other day about Newport (my hometown), I spotted a post asking about what your mum made the best. Corned beef stew came up several times, along with faggots and ice slices. I’m not sure corned beef stew is strictly a Welsh recipe, but it certainly seems to be ubiquitous in my neck of the woods.
I’m not sure anyone knows exactly what went into Nanna’s stew – family members report seeing splashes of gravy browning, spoons of Bisto, various Oxo cubes, and Marmite heading into the giant bubbling broth at some point or another. I think Nanna might have changed the recipe every time and yet the basics were always there: potatoes, carrots, onions and corned beef. I wrote before about my Nanna’s proclivity for using corned beef in myriad ways to make a meal, but stew was definitely one that was a regular on the menu – always served with slices of Braces bread to mop up the salty beef juices.
Ingredients (Serves 4)
2 large potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks
2 medium carrots, peeled and cut into thick rounds
2 small brown onions, roughly chopped
2 beef stock cubes
1 tin of corned beef, roughly cubed
Salt and pepper
Method
Put the potatoes in a large saucepan and cover with about 1 litre of cold water. Bring to the boil.
When boiling, add the carrots and onions and crumble in the stock cubes.
Cover and simmer for 20 minutes.
Take off the lid and add the corned beef and continue simmering uncovered for another 20 minutes until the potatoes are soft but still holding their shape and the corned beef has started to break apart.
Check for seasoning – you shouldn’t really need much salt as the stock cubes and corned beef are quite salty.
Serve in bowls alongside fresh bread.
Like many one-pot meals with a sauce or broth, this always tastes better the next day – that’s if it lasts that long!
If you try the recipe out, don’t forget to tag any photos with #mywelshkitchen.
The Playlist
To me, cooking and music go hand in hand, whether that’s singing at the top of your voice using a wooden spoon as a microphone while waiting for pasta to boil, or dancing around with the oven gloves on as the oven timer counts down. Here are this week’s ideas for your Welsh Kitchen playlist.
First up this week we have Eleri Angharad from Swansea, a country-pop artist who combines a distinctive country vibe with a certain Welsh element. This piece is one of her more up-tempo numbers – ideal of bopping around the kitchen. Second up, we have the gorgeous tones of Maureen Evans from Cardiff, who achieved great success in the 1960s. I could listen to her all day.
Nightclub Floor by Eleri Angharad
Like I Do by Maureen Evans
The Pantry
Good food is nothing without good ingredients and thankfully there are plenty of fantastic Welsh products on the market. Here is where you’ll find recommendations to stock up your cupboard, fridge or fruit bowl, or a really great place for food.
Calon Lân sauces, chutneys and preserves
It’s never too early to start stocking up for Christmas, and the sauces and chutneys from Calon Lân are perfect. From tart cranberry sauce and zingy mint sauce, to fiery sweet chilli jam and ale chutney. You can buy them from Discover Delicious, Blasus Cymru among others.