Beef and guinness stew with a twist

A given dish on the menu this time of the year is stew. I love hearty, slow cooked food with flavours one can remember and long for even during the summer months. Lucky for me it is October and that means at least one day a week a lovely stew is cooked and put on our dinner table. Beef and guinness stew is very common over here in ireland and it is lovely but maybe not exciting enough for me so last week I cooked some sort of fusion dish: Beef and guiness stew/Chili con Carne. Basically it is stewing meat and stout as a base mixed with the lovely spcies traditionally used when cooking Chili con Carne. A proper recipe is hard to give cause it was bit of an improvised dish but the result was lovely...I think this recipe here will do!

400 grams beef, stew pieces
100 grams black forrest ham/ smoked streaky bacon
1 large white onion
2 peppers, red and yellow
3 cloves of garlic
1/2 red chili, no seeds
4tbsp tomato pure
500ml guiness
100ml beef stock
2tsp cumin
2tsp paprika powder
1tsp ground cinnamon
1tsp dried oregano
1 bay leaf
3tbsp vegetable oil
salt and pepper

Chop onion, peppers, chili and garlic finely. Cut the bacon or ham into thin strips.
Fry the vegetables and spices in 2 tbsp of oil for 5min in a frying pan. Transfer the vegetables and spices into a pot. Add tomato pure, bay leaf and guiness and slowly start to simmer.
Fry the meat and ham/bacon in remaining oil in the same pan as you cooked the vegetables in, season with salt and pepper.
Add the meat to the vegetables and pour the beef stock in to the frying pan and bring to the boil, whisk the bottom of the pan to release all left over juices and spices. Add the liquid to the meat and vegetables, bring to the boil. Lower the heat and let simmer for at least two hours or until the meat falls apart and the vegetables are soft and mushy.

Serve with a dollop of sour cream and potatoes or rice.