Carne con Papas - a Cuban dish popular in Tenerife

Carne con papas literally means "meat with potatoes" and this originally Cuban dish is just that.

Routinely found amongst the available dishes in Tenerife tapas bars, this dish comes with or without sauce. If you get the sauce-less version, you can give it a bit of a kick by sprinkling it with tabasco.

The other version, meat and potatoes in gravy, is given its characteristic taste by the variety of ingredients that go into its preparation.

Necessary Utensils

Blender
Pressure cooker

Ingredients

Half a kilo of stew meat, cut into chunks
Two large potatoes, cut into similar sized cubes
Half a green pepper, seeded and chopped
Half a white onion, chopped3 cloves of garlic, crushed
Tin of chopped tomatoes
ground cumin
saltachiote powder (Mexican spice) or turmeric
Glass of white wine
Three glasses of water
Beef stock cube
15 ml olive oil

Method

Place the pepper, onion, garlic, a pinch of cumin and salt into the blender and combine it, using the "pulse" feature, while drizzling in some of the olive oil.

Continue until the mixture becomes a paste.

Heat some more olive oil in the pressure cooker. Add the paste from the blender, cooking for about one minute. Stir in the achiote powder or turmeric plus more cumin.

After another minute, add the chopped tomatoes. Return the mixture to a simmer, then add the stew meat, cooking for about five minutes.

Add the potatoes, wine, water and the stock cube. Boil for one minute, adding more water if necessary.

Finally, put the lid on the pressure cooker and cook under 15 pounds pressure for between 30 and 45 minutes.Ready to serve!