Background: Mason told me we should make guiso for our next international meal. He wove a story of his high school food service job and his Guatemalan coworkers that would make a magical dish called "guiso." Well, "guiso" literally translates to stew; however, it is not just stew. It's more akin to a braised meat dish, and it's common in many Latin American cuisines. Each country does it differently, so this is my attempt to make it Guatemalan style. 

Luckily for us, Colorado has a large Latin American population and that means easy-to-find ingredients. 

Most of the ingredients were vegetables: fresh tomatoes, onion, garlic, bell pepper, and potatoes. I used beef stew meat for the main protein. Then, I found dried chile (which I'd never used before, but now I feel like I can't live without), sazon seasoning, and fresh thyme. Lastly, I got yellow Spanish rice and corn tortillas to have as sides. 

So, as far as authenticity goes, I didn't actually use a recipe for this meal. First, I read many, many recipes. They were all in Spanish, so my computer's translation tool was put to good use. Then, I watched several videos of people making it. Again, also in Spanish. I appreciate food because it is universal, and I could still tell what they were doing despite the language barrier. 

Anyway, this meal is an amalgamation of all the recipes I found. 

The technique of this dish was very straightforward. First, I coated the meat in flour and browned it. Then, I poured over beef broth and threw in a sprig of fresh thyme. Once it was boiling, I added a packet of sazon and covered it to simmer. In the meantime, I roasted all the vegetables in the oven for about 15 minutes. Then, I put them in a pot to boil together with the dried chile--the water helps reconstitute the chile. After everything boiled for a while, I added all the vegetables to the blender and pulsed it until smooth. Once the veggie liquid was ready, I added that and peeled, chopped potatoes to the meat pot. Then, everything simmered together until it was ready-- about another hour. I make the yellow rice and heated corn tortillas when the guisada was ready. 

To quote the Mason, "This is delicious." When I asked him to describe the taste, he said "Um... beefy? You can also taste the bell pepper." 

I would agree. The bell pepper was a big flavor along with the sazon seasoning, beef, and tomato. I ate the guisada with the rice all together with a fork and used the corn tortilla to sop up the excess sauce. Mason piled the rice and the guisada onto his corn tortilla and ate it like a taco. It was pretty good. It wasn't spicy at all, but it had good flavor. I don't know that I would make it again, but I would definitely order it in a restaurant. 

Oh, and if you were wondering, Mason said it was "kind of" like the one his coworkers made. 

I would say 3.5/5 and Mason says 4.1/5. 

To find out more about Guatemala, visit https://www.britannica.com/place/Guatemala.