Sonja's Kitchen: Traditional Kenyan Beef and Bean Stew

There’s beef stew and then there’s Kenyan beef stew which sits entirely in a league of it’s own, and we’re confident we’ve absolutely mastered it! This is a fan favourite dish for us all at The Safari Cottages; guests and staff alike, and served up with warm rice or ugali, Sonja’s Flakey Chapatis and some local vegetables dishes you’ve got yourself a simple, hearty, homey dish that’ll have you licking your chops and going back for seconds and thirds.

Sourcing your beef

Wherever possible aim for grass-fed organic beef. We source our beef directly from Ol Pejeta where the cattle roam freely on the conservancy and the meat is noticeably excellent; the higher quality the source, the better the result. This recipe also suggest using diced beef because this is the most common presentation but any cut will do; we particularly love using osso bocco (beef shin) or oxtail; the meat really falls off the bone beautifully.

MAKE IT SAUCY

Despite the focus on meat, Kenyan beef stew is actually all about the sauce so measure your beef with your heart in this recipe! This is because, traditionally, beef was very valuable and hard to come by and, for a lot of communities it still is, so if we’re really going to be true to the roots of this stew the use of beef should be really minimal and used mainly to provide flavour to the sauce which is soaked up with ugali to fill bellies. In fact the original version of this recipes calls for just 50g of beef! But these days, reasonably priced, good quality beef is more accessible for a lot of us so you can make your stew as meaty as you’d like.

Here’s our much-loved Kenyan beef and bean stew recipe, right from Sonja’s cookbook, Footprints in The Butter.

KENYAN BEEF & BEAN STEW

Serves 4

• 4 cups of red kidney beans or other beans (tinned or dried beans that have been soaked overnight)

• 50g-1kg diced beef (depending on how meaty you want your stew)

• 2 onions

• 3 carrots

• 4 tablespoons of your preferred cooking oil

• 2 tablespoons of flour

• 6 cups of water or beef stock

• salt and pepper to taste

1. Slice the onions, heat the oil and fry, adding the diced beef until it’s all brown.

2. Chop the carrots.

3. Remove the onion and the meat from the frying pan. Keep the oil on a low heat and add the flour, stirring continuously until brown.

4. Pour in the water, stirring continuously as you bring to the boil. Add salt, pepper, onions, beef, carrots and beans.

5. Reduce heat, cover tightly and simmer for about an hour until beef is tender.

Browning the beef shin

Combining beef with veg and beans

Adding the liquid

Let us know how your Kenyan beef and bean stew turned out! You can purchase Sonja’s recipe book Footprints in The Butter here for more of our favourite camp recipes.

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