Beef Stifado

I have neglected my blog page since setting it up but now I am considering writing a cook book so I thought I'd share some of my recipes online and see what people think. In these times of a credit crunch you'll find my recipes cheap and easy to make.

I consider myself a pure form of cook which means I dont need to spend loads of money on ingredients to make good authentic dishes and this. I do have my mishaps occasionally but I have my personal taste tester to give feedback on my dishes, My Husband!

Anyway Beef Stifado. I had some beef shin (my personal favorite cut of beef) in the fridge and was a bit tired of pies and curry so looked up a recipe for Beef Stifado. I got a general idea of what is involved and tweaked it to suit my style and what I had in the cupboards (which wasn't alot) This served 2 but I am absolutely stuffed so would probably feed 3

0.5kg of beef shin (more marbled the better)
2 onions (1/2 finely chopped, the rest in chunks)
4 Cloves Garlic
1 teaspoon minced garlic (from a jar, my little cheat)
1/2 tbsp Tomato puree
1 vegetable stock cube
2 sprigs rosemary (you can use dry but i find rosemary so much nicer fresh)
2 tsp Olive oil (pref extra virgin)
1 Glass red wine
2 tsp Worcester sauce (not authentic but I didn't have red wine vinegar)
1/2 tsp Cinanmon
3 cloves
1 Bayleaf
1/2 tbsp Sugar
Salt and Pepper

As you can see most of this stuff is inexpensive and likely to be in any budding cooks larder.

Preheat oven to about 150/160 degrees centigrade

Dice the meat into 1 inch pieces, do not remove the fat as this will give the dish most of its flavour. Pick out the fat later if you must but most of it will cook down anyway. Add to a large saucepan and fry on a high heat to seal the meat.
Cook for 5 mins then add the 1/2 finely chopped onion and the garlic (sliced). Continue cooking on a high heat until onion is soft.
Now add the worcester sauce and the red wine, stir and cover for 5 mins. Now fry the chunky onion in a separate pan with the sugar until brown and a little soft then set aside.
Now to the meat mixture add the cloves, cinnamon, rosemary and bayleaf and stir together along with salt and pepper to taste.
Now transfer to casserole dish, preferably terracotta (I picked up mine in a charity shop for £1 and does make a difference) if you dont have one pryrex with a lid will suffice
Now mix in the slightly caremalised onion and place lid on. Put in the oven and cook at this temperature for 2 and a half hours.
For the last 20 mins to half an hour I put the oven up to full and removed the lid. Keep an eye on it though, the idea is to thicken it a little and intensify the flavour, it also means you can cook your potatoes at the same time.

This does take a while but my word it is worth it, feel free to add more cinnamon if it is to your taste but felt this was the perfect balance