Beef Stifado

Ever since I came back from my summer holiday in Greece, I've been thinking about making stifado. I bought a book with Greek recipes on my way back from Corfu, and I made the stifado according to the recipe in the book. It's a traditional Greek dish made with beef, small onions and a lot of different spices. In our, Macedonian, cuisine we have a similar dish called chomlek (чомлек), and I like it a lot, but there's something about the stifado recipe that makes it exotic and natural at the same time. And, I almost forgot - I pronounce it my favorite. That explains why there are so few photos, I couldn't lose time in taking photographs, the entire house smelled divinely.


Ingredients:

• 1 kilo beef (2,20 pounds)
• 750 grams small onions (1,65 pounds)
• 2 normal onions finely chopped
• 3-4 cloves of garlic (miinced)
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon tomato puree dissolved in 1/2 cup water
• 1 cup red wine
• 180 grams olive oil
• some salt
• some pepper
• some nutmeg
• some oregano

Cut the meat in serving pieces. Heat the oil in a saucepan and brown the meat on all sides. Add the chopped onions and fry until golden brown. Add the garlic and fry little more. Then add the small onions and the tomato puree. Pour the wine, and all the spices.

Cook in a covered pot at medium heat for about 2 and half hours, until the meat is tender. You can add some more water if you think it's needed.

Serve with some nice red wine!