For this dish you can use beef or even rabbit and baby onions in tomato sauce. With this tasty dish you can wave winter goodbye. It is simmered gently for 2 – 4 hours, until the meat is very tender and the onions are ever so soft and unbelievably sweet. Only the peeling of the onions is a bit time consuming, but then you let your pot simmer and you forget it for a couple of hours.
“Stifado” is a traditional Greek dish and is cooked in every part of the land. It is also offered to visitors at various fairs. In a village they cook 7 tons of stifado in 230 cauldrons over open fires.
Ingredients: 500 gr. beef cubed 800 gr. baby onions peeled 4 cloves garlic finely chopped 1 ½ teaspoon concentrated tomato paste 2 ripe tomatoes chopped ¾ cup olive oil 1/3 – ½ cup good quality vinegar 2 bay leaves 1 large sprig rosemary Salt, pepper
Directions:
First peel the onions. Remove the outer papery layer together with the first layer of the onions. Wash and dry them.
Put the oil in a wide bottomed pot and sauté the beef, until it is browned on all sides. Put the meat on a plate, and sauté the onions for about 5 minutes. Remove them from the pot and keep them aside. Put the garlic in the pot and sauté it for 2 minutes. Return the meat to the pot and add the tomatoes, the tomato paste, the bay leaves and the rosemary and the vinegar. Turn down the fire and simmer very gently for about an hour. Add the onions and simmer for a further hour or two. Test the meat to see if it is soft. Add salt and pepper. Stir and taste to adjust seasonings. The little onions should be very soft, although still holding their shape and very sweet. There must be a little sauce.
It can be served with plain boiled rice, or French fries.