Prices are in euro (valid in Hania). All
ingredients are Greek or locally sourced; those marked with * are
considered frugal here because they are cheap and/or people have their
own supplies.
Making a beef stifado in Greece illustrates how one country's frugal meals may actually form another country's luxury meals. Meat is quite expensive these days, especially beef which now costs over 10 euro a kilo for Greek-raised beef, and about the same for French beef (and a little more than that for Dutch beef), so I wouldn't call a beef dish frugal in Greek terms. Since we aren't vegetarians, we still indulge in the classic meat-based meal for Sunday lunch. The trick to making a frugal meal out of expensive meat is to find ways to stretch the dish and keep it filling and tasty.
Classic Greek stifado is basically a stew made from chunks of (usually) beef or rabbit, slow-cooked in a light tomato/wine sauce, with spices and lots of onions. I usually make this dish with rabbit, which I'm given every now and then by farming folk living in the area... but I haven't been given one in a while. I made stifado recently with some Greek beef, which takes a long time to stew to make it very tender. You can use a pressure cooker if you have one; I let my stifado slow-cook for about three hours on the element, just checking it constantly to make sure there are enough liquids in the pot.
To make stifado frugal, I cook a bit more than I need for a Sunday meal, so I can have some leftovers to use in a more frugal meal the next day (serves 4-6)
1 large onion, finely chopped*
1-2 fat cloves of garlic, finely chopped*
a few glugs of olive oil*
1kg beef cut up into golfball-sized chunks (~11 euro)
half a wineglass of home-brewed wine*
~150g tomato sauce* (a third of a store-bought tin costs about ~30 cents)
2 bay leaves*
1 teaspoon of allspice berries*
salt and pepper*
20 small onions (~50 cents)
Pour some oil into a shallow heavy-based pan, and cook the large onion and garlic till translucent. Add the beef chunks and brown them well all over. Then pour in the wine, and let the beef cook in that (uncovered) for about 20 minutes. Add the tomato sauce, spices and seasonings, together with a cup of water and turn the heat down to the lowest point. Cover the pot and let the beef cook for about 45 minutes. It will need to be checked at this point, and you will add more water to it, but never too much: I added two more cups of water at regular intervals. If you add the water altogether, it will feel like the beef was boiled rather than stewed. Test the beef for doneness by checking if a knife goes through a chunk without too much trouble. As soon as you think you are nearing this point, add the small onions (peeled, with a small cross incised on their root side) and let them sit on top of the meat, half soaking in water. Close the lid and allow the beef to continue to cook until it is done.
Stifado is traditionally served with fries in Greece, but only with freshly-cut potatoes - don't use pre-cooked ones because you'll ruin the taste. You'll need about 4-5 medium-sized potatoes, cut into French fries and (~70 cents for the potatoes) some olive oil for frying.*
Serve 3-5 pieces of beef and a 3-4 onions per person, sitting in a good amount of sauce on the plate, and place a few French fries next to the meat. Serve the stifado with a plain green salad. Keep about 3-4 chunks of meat (with sauce and onions) for tomorrow's frugal meal...
Total cost of meal: about 13 euro; 2.50-3 euro per person.
©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.
Making a beef stifado in Greece illustrates how one country's frugal meals may actually form another country's luxury meals. Meat is quite expensive these days, especially beef which now costs over 10 euro a kilo for Greek-raised beef, and about the same for French beef (and a little more than that for Dutch beef), so I wouldn't call a beef dish frugal in Greek terms. Since we aren't vegetarians, we still indulge in the classic meat-based meal for Sunday lunch. The trick to making a frugal meal out of expensive meat is to find ways to stretch the dish and keep it filling and tasty.
Classic Greek stifado is basically a stew made from chunks of (usually) beef or rabbit, slow-cooked in a light tomato/wine sauce, with spices and lots of onions. I usually make this dish with rabbit, which I'm given every now and then by farming folk living in the area... but I haven't been given one in a while. I made stifado recently with some Greek beef, which takes a long time to stew to make it very tender. You can use a pressure cooker if you have one; I let my stifado slow-cook for about three hours on the element, just checking it constantly to make sure there are enough liquids in the pot.
To make stifado frugal, I cook a bit more than I need for a Sunday meal, so I can have some leftovers to use in a more frugal meal the next day (serves 4-6)
1 large onion, finely chopped*
1-2 fat cloves of garlic, finely chopped*
a few glugs of olive oil*
1kg beef cut up into golfball-sized chunks (~11 euro)
half a wineglass of home-brewed wine*
~150g tomato sauce* (a third of a store-bought tin costs about ~30 cents)
2 bay leaves*
1 teaspoon of allspice berries*
salt and pepper*
20 small onions (~50 cents)
Pour some oil into a shallow heavy-based pan, and cook the large onion and garlic till translucent. Add the beef chunks and brown them well all over. Then pour in the wine, and let the beef cook in that (uncovered) for about 20 minutes. Add the tomato sauce, spices and seasonings, together with a cup of water and turn the heat down to the lowest point. Cover the pot and let the beef cook for about 45 minutes. It will need to be checked at this point, and you will add more water to it, but never too much: I added two more cups of water at regular intervals. If you add the water altogether, it will feel like the beef was boiled rather than stewed. Test the beef for doneness by checking if a knife goes through a chunk without too much trouble. As soon as you think you are nearing this point, add the small onions (peeled, with a small cross incised on their root side) and let them sit on top of the meat, half soaking in water. Close the lid and allow the beef to continue to cook until it is done.
Stifado is traditionally served with fries in Greece, but only with freshly-cut potatoes - don't use pre-cooked ones because you'll ruin the taste. You'll need about 4-5 medium-sized potatoes, cut into French fries and (~70 cents for the potatoes) some olive oil for frying.*
Serve 3-5 pieces of beef and a 3-4 onions per person, sitting in a good amount of sauce on the plate, and place a few French fries next to the meat. Serve the stifado with a plain green salad. Keep about 3-4 chunks of meat (with sauce and onions) for tomorrow's frugal meal...
Total cost of meal: about 13 euro; 2.50-3 euro per person.
©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.
Maria…that stifado looks amazing! Love the chunks of kreas!
ReplyDeleteThis is a heartwarming dish for this -25 C weather.
ReplyDeleteIt looks great. I do have a poor rabbit in the freezer, it's a present so that would be minus the 11 euros. Also friends give us wild boar around Easter time when they get bored of it and they want to emtpy their freezer so that would be another chance for stifado. Despite being a Greek myself I am always amazed by how much olive oil you add. It reminds me of my mum's cooking as a child. Very nostalgic but I can't bring myself to add as much as you do. 70 litres per year is about what we manage.
ReplyDeletewhen i wasnt married and i lived alone, i used 5 kilos a year - everytime i visited my uncles, they'd ask me to take some olive oil from their supplies, and i'd say i dont need it - they were always shocked by how little i used
ReplyDeleteWhen we cook things like this,( elk stew, in our case) we always make extra for the next 5 days Every weekend we cook two dishes that can be reheated easily for dinners or carried to work for lunches. Today it's a "barbeque for two" dish made from pork steaks. That is very easily reheated. We'll eat it on "torta" rolls. There will be leftovers for lunches. Also, we are cooking an elk roast for Sunday dinner and that will provide cold elk sandwiches later in the week. Last night I made a lentil and sausage soup. I am giving a large container of it to a bachelor neighbor. (who maintains he can't cook) He plows the snow in our large driveway and we feed him Sunday night dinner. Good trade, no? We also give him fresh eggs from time to time. He really appreciates them. We are only doing what is normal, the sharing, and we really like to do it. We would like more folks on our country road to join in. Most people think they are too busy to cook, socialize, or share. What a pity.
ReplyDeletei'm so heartened to hear that it isnt just me that cooks in large batches! when i first mentioned this to some people, they made it sound like we were eating stale food that had gone bad - i love your tradeoff too: i like feeding the hordes!
ReplyDeleteYou have put me in the mood for trying a stifado at last.
ReplyDeleteWe bought a chest freezer last year and cook up large amounts for us and the kids and freeze in portions. Best purchase we ever made. Stifado pencilled in for the end of the week, have a few things to eat our way through until then. A bag of root vegetables was marked down to 50p in the supermarket today and will be made into a curry tomorrow with some lentils. Frugal all the way.
if you make stifado, i will be posting a recipe on friday about how to make another whole meal out of stifado leftovers
ReplyDelete