Aruban Beef Stew Stoba

Cut the beef ribs into small cubes of about 1 cm. Chop the onions. Remove the seeds from the peppers and tomatoes Cut the bell pepper and tomatoes into small cubes. Wash the carrot. Cut the carrots in half and slice them. The slices may be about half an inch thick.

Put the casserole on the stove. Use the largest burner pit. Pour the annato oil into the pan. (Read Grandma’s Tip if you want to replace the annato oil). Let the oil get hot. Put the onions and bell pepper in the pan. Squeeze the garlic cloves into the pan. Fry the onions and the bell pepper until translucent. Add the meat. Add enough salt and pepper. Cook the meat on high heat until the cubes are seared. Add the capers, tomato paste, soy sauce, nutmeg, cumin and paprika to the pan. Stir well.

Crumble the stock cube into the pan and add 250 ml of boiling water. (I use hot water from the kettle). Stir well. Turn the heat to the lowest setting. Simmer the meat on low heat for 1½ hours. Keep an eye on the casserole with the meat and stir occasionally. If the water evaporates too much, causing the meat to stick to the bottom of the pan, you can add a little extra water. However, if the meat is simmering at the lowest setting, this is not necessary. Check if the meat has become tender enough before moving on to the next step. You can do this best by tasting a block of meat. If it is still tough and not tender, let it simmer for half an hour. Then try again. Do not proceed to the next step until the meat is tender and tender.

After the meat has simmered enough, add the carrots and tomatoes. The stew is ready when the carrots are soft. You can test this by using a fork in the roots. You can then easily prick it with a fork. The fork should slide through easily as if it were going through butter.

Ingredients:

1 kilo of beef ribs

3 tablespoons of annato oil

1 cube of beef stock

250 ml of boiling water

3 onions

1 red pepper

3 tablespoons of tomato paste (canned pasta)

3 tablespoons of soy sauce

3 cloves of garlic

½ teaspoon of ground nutmeg

2 teaspoons of ground cumin