Axoa

As tradition built it

Serves 6. 25 minutes' preparation, about 50 minutes' cooking.

Ingredients

• 1 kg veal shoulder, in small cubes
• 2 red peppers
• 2 green peppers
• 1 tin crushed tomatoes
• 1 onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• as needed olive oil
• 1 tsp piment d'Espelette purée
• to taste salt and pepper

To serve

• to serve rice

Method

1. Split the peppers, remove the white parts, and cut the flesh into small cubes.
2. Peel and slice the onion and garlic. Cut the veal into small cubes.
3. Sweat the onion and garlic in a little olive oil in a cocotte, then add the peppers. Salt.
4. Add the meat and stir, then pour in the tomatoes and salt again. Cover and simmer 30 minutes.
5. Add the Espelette purée, correct the salt and add pepper. Cook 15 minutes more and serve with rice.

Notes

The recipe is Maison Arostéguy's, the Biarritz Basque grocer. Orocbat, a French Basque maker of prepared dishes, uses no tomato: mostly mild green Anglet peppers and one red, Espelette powder with the meat, a glass of water or stock, 45 or 60 minutes covered with the lid off for the last 10, and an egg yolk and vinegar stirred in to finish.

What a modern chef changes

The veal's texture protected by treating it more like a quick sear than a stew.

Rung 6

Method

1. Sear the knife-cut veal briefly and hot before it joins the pepper base, rather than letting it cook entirely inside the sauce from raw, for a more distinct texture against the soft peppers.
2. Hold the finished pepper base warm separately and combine only at the very end, a short final simmer of a few minutes rather than the traditional longer joint cook.
3. Finish with Espelette pepper in two stages, a small amount early for base seasoning and the rest right at serving, a considered departure from the single late addition tradition specifies.