Rick Stein Bullfighter Stew with Macaronade

 Taken from the book ' French Odyssey ' , I was watching ' Secret France ' and got my books mixed up, I trawled through this book and found this recipe from southern France ( wondering why I hadn't seen it mentioned on the TV ) and decided to give it a go anyway....soo many recipes that never get made ! 

I was going to just chuck all the ingredients into the slow cooker and see how it turned out but at the last minute I relented and took a bit of care.

Ingredients

1.5kg Lean beef ( I used lean diced beef but shin would be nice )

2 Medium onions chopped

6 Garlic gloves finely minced

3 Large peeled carrots sliced on the diagonal

1 Bottle red wine

2 Large sprigs thyme

2 Large sprigs rosemary

2 Bay leaves

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

2 cinnamon sticks

6 Cloves

3 Tablespoons olive oil

100 g smoked lardons ( or streaky bacon )

50g Black olives

1 Tablespoon Beurre Manie  ( Recipe Below ) 

Salt and pepper

For the Macaronade

500g Macaroni

250ml liquid from the stew

75g Parmesan cheese finely grated

Beurre Manie

1 Tablespoon good butter

1 Tablespoon plain flour 

Mix to a smooth paste ready to add at the end of the cooking time of the stew.

In a large bowl combine the beef, onions, garlic, carrots, red wine, herbs, cloves and cinnamon. Cover and place into the fridge overnight.

The next day, drain and fry meat in olive oil in little batches and place into a flameproof casserole ( or in my case a slow cooker ).  Fry vegetables and add to the pot, fry lardons or bacon , add olives and the marinade to the pot and cook for approx 3 hours or until the beef is tender ( all afternoon in my slow cooker ).

Now, it's worth mentioning at this point that I didn't realise that this needed to be marinaded overnight so I just went about it without setting it aside, I fried my veg, then my bacon, then my meat in olive oil and poured everything into the slow cooker and cooked all afternoon. Just before ready to serve. stir in the beurre manis to thicken.

After many hours just simmering away in the slow cooker it was time to make the macoronade, this was dead simple, simply cook the macaroni to the instructions on the packet ( about 8 minutes ) drain and mix in the stew gravy, top with cheese and grill for a few minutes.

Serve straight away with the stew  - lovely! 

I liked this - it had a faintly Greek flavour but I probably wouldn't make the pasta again - it was uninteresting, I'd probably mix up my continents and serve this lovely stew with some Greek potatoes.