Goan Wedding Stew

Goan Wedding Stew

A classic dish made popular and served at weddings in Goa, that has now become a staple in many household celebrations. This is my interpretation of it.



Ingredients:
1 pound beef
1 pound pork
1 pound chicken
3 teaspoon ginger/garlic paste
3 teaspoon salt
3 potatoes (1.5 cup - cubed)
2 onions (1 cup - chopped fine)
1 cup carrots - cubed
1 cup green peas
2 cup macaroni/pasta
1 teaspoon cumin powder
1.5 teaspoon coriander powder
2 inch cinnamon
5 cloves (optional)
5 cardamom (optional)
1 can coconut milk (optional)
2 chilies
1.5 tablespoon tomato paste
salt to taste

Directions:

1. Cut the Beef, Pork and Chicken into 1/2 inch cubes. Apply 1 tsp ginger/garlic and 1 tsp salt to the meat. Leave to marinate for around 1 hour.

 2. Prep your spices to save time while cooking. I've added Cloves and Cardamom to my recipe, because I like the additional flavor boost that they provide to this dish.

 3. Cut the potatoes into 1/2 inch cubes. Cut onions into fine pieces.

 4. I use baby carrots instead of regular carrots. I find that they cook faster, and my little one prefers the flavour. I also use frozen peas for most dishes as I always have a bag in the freezer.

5. I've gone with the large shell pasta for this recipe, because that is what my daughter selected as the pasta of choice. Feel free to use whatever you want to instead. Boil, drain and keep aside to cool.

6. In a large pan or pot, saute the onions till golden brown. Add all the dry and wet spices to it. Fry for a few minutes and then remove from pan and keep aside.

7. In the same pan, fry the beef until all the water dries out.

8. Next, follow the same process for the pork.

9. The chicken goes last. Don't cook the chicken all the way dry because it will also cook further during the final cooking process. You can see the juices that are left in the pan, when I took mine off the heat.

10. Add the onion and spice mix back to the pan along with the 3 meats and cook for a few minutes.

11. Now we start to add the vegetables to the mix. The carrots go first since these will take the longest to cook. Add a cup of water or chicken/beef stock and let it cook for around 10 minutes.

12. The potatoes go next. Let these cook until they are almost fully tender. 

13. The peas go last, as they require just a few minutes to get completely tender.

14. Once all the vegetables are incorporated into the mix, you can add in the pasta and let the whole dish cook on low heat for around 5 minutes. You can also add in the optional can of coconut milk at this time, and let it cook for another 5 minutes or so. I like to do that as a variation to the plain stew as a flavour booster. 

15. You're done! Serve hot with a couple slices of fresh bread or on steamed rice. Enjoy!