Stifado is a Greek stew. In Corfu, it is usually made from beef or lamb, but you can find recipes with rabbit, chicken, fish or even seafood.
As for the type and preparation of beef, they mostly use back beef, but it can be used, shank, front or even navel (this option I chose at home). Someone puts the meat in red wine the day before, but it’s not a necessity.
The consistency and colour is a stifado similar to our or Hungarian gulyas. While for gulyas is the basic raw material, except meat and onion, paprika, for stifado it is a tomato.
Ingredients
- 1 kg of meat of your choice – see above
- 1 kg onion
- 0,5 kg tomatoes raw or can of crushed
- 3 garlic cloves
- bouquet garni – a mix of herbs – thyme, oregano, parsley, sage, chives, rosemary
- bay leaf
- cinnamon
- whole pepper
- allspice
- clove
- nutmeg
- hot pepper/chilli – do not overdo
- vinegar
- olive oil
- spoon of sugar
- for a side dish with rice, pasta, potatoes or white bread of Mediterranean type
Instructions
Cut the meat into pieces, fry shortly in olive oil and remove.
Saute half of the onion until golden. Add meat and tomatoes. Briefly stew, add spices, chopped garlic, two tablespoons of wine vinegar – to your taste – and sugar. If you don’t have some of the spices, don’t worry about it.
If you used stiffer beef, let it simmer for about 3/4 hours (I use a pressure cooker). If the meat is tough, it has enough shank (beef navel) or you do not use a pressure cooker, even longer. If your basis meat is fish or chicken, you don’t need much time to make the meat soften. Continue with the next point.
Add the rest of the onion – if the onions are small and whole, otherwise split them into quarters. Someone is not using onions on the whole – for example, the restaurant where my photo comes from, then put all the chopped onions right from the start.
Cook for another 20-30 minutes.
Side dish
As a side dish, you could add rice, pasta, potatoes or white bread of Mediterranean type.
Wine
For stifádo, I’d recommend drier red wine.
Questions, likes and sharing
If you liked my recipe, please appreciate it by Like, comment ore share – thanks and enjoy!
