STIFADO

I was looking at an old recipe book of mine and found a recipe for Stifado which I had made for dinner for my sisters 24^th birthday in 1980!!!

Little did I know it was Greek! I was 18 years old at the time, flatting and obviously experimenting with new recipes then.

I remember those flatting days well – the stock standard meal my flatmates and I prepared if we were having friends over was lasagne, coleslaw and garlic bread!

My recipe for Stifado from then used BUTTER to fry the meat in (horror of all horrors – no OLIVE OIL???) I guess we didn’t use much olive oil in NZ in those days…so I have changed the recipe to use olive oil instead!

·      1 kg stewing steak cut roughly into 2 cm chunks (I use gravy beef)

·      salt and pepper

·      ¼ cup ILIADA Extra VirginOlive Oil

·      ½ cup red wine

·      1 tblspn Messino red winevinegar

·      100g tin tomato paste

·      1 tblspn brown sugar

·      250ml beef stock

·      1 x large clove garlic crushed

·      9 x small onions (pickling onions)

·      2 x bay leaves

·      ½ cinnamon stick

·      4 x cloves

Heat the olive oil to a medium/high heat in a heavy based pan. Season steak with the salt and pepper and fry in batches until browned. Put the steak to one side. Add the wine, vinegar, tomato paste, brown sugar, beef stock and garlic to the pan and stir to combine. Return the meat to the pan and give everything a good mix.

Place the peeled onions on top, add the bay leaves, cinnamon stick and cloves, give it all a wee mix, cover with a lid and bake @ 150oC for 2 – 2/12 hours until meat is tender.

Remove the cinnamon stick and bay leaves and serve with a robust pasta such as tagliatelle or parpadelle.

Buon appetito!!!