Fierce Foodie: Stifado Your Face With This Stew

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a blogumn by Roya Hamadani

Here in Pittsburgh it’s been snowing almost everyday for over a week.  Cleaning the snow off my car day after day after day makes me want a nice warm bowl of beef stew.  To me, stew is a kind of magic created from humble ingredients – inexpensive cuts of meat, onions, and pantry contents – come together to make a sum infinitely greater than its parts.

The trick to making a good stew is patience.  To render the beef tender and produce a rich broth, a stew has to be left alone to cook at a very low heat setting for several hours – the longer the better.  Long, slow cooking pulls the fat out of the tough beef and softens the meat.  Using a leaner cut of beef generally results in dry, stringy meat and thin broth, and more expensive, tender cuts are wasted in a stew.

One of my favorite recipes is for a Greek version called stifado.  Chunks of slowly simmered, tender beef and onions are flavored with garlic, bay leaf, red wine and tomato.  A marinade of vinegar cuts the richness of the stew and brightens the flavors of the herbs.  Served over little pillows of potato gnocchi, it’s simple and soul warming.

Stifado

Briefly marinate 1 pound of stew beef cut into chunks with enough vinegar to cover and 2 cloves garlic in non-reactive, glass bowl.  15 minutes is sufficient.  Remove the beef chunks from the marinade and brown them in olive oil in a dutch oven or large stew pot with lid.  Add 2-3 pounds chopped onions, 1 can of tomato paste, 3 cloves garlic, 1 bay leaf, 1 tsp lemon juice or vinegar and a ½ cup of red wine or water.  1 tsp of dried oregano, marjoram or rosemary is optional.  Cook for 3 plus hours on the lowest setting on the range.  It’s ready when the beef is falling apart tender.  Serve over gnocchi with crusty bread.