Beef Stifado
Serves 3 (or 2 without a carb) | Prep Minimum 3 ½ hours marinading, or overnight | Cook 2 ½ hours |
If you are looking for a seriously tasty portion of comfort in a bowl, then this beef stifado is definitely for you! Through slow cooking it develops a rich, red wine, almost smokey flavoured sauce. It’s ingredients are essentially very basic, so I like to have garlicky mashed sweet potatoes with a green vegetable next to this hunky beefy dish, to help me get closer to my 7-a-day. This deserves good ingredients, so try going for organic produce if you don’t already. Try and marinade the beef as long as possible, over night if you can.
BEEF
Around 85g of beef provides you with the following of your daily requirements; 50% protein, 39% zinc, 37% B12, 24% selenium, 20% phosphorous, 18% niacin, 16% B6, 14% iron, 12% riboflavin. (SOURCE; http://www.beef.org/udocs/Beef%20Bytes%20Health.pdf
TOMATOES
are full of beta carotenes which is really beneficial to our skin. Tomatoes contain high vitamin C, and also vitamins A & K. They are helpful when needing to boost your immune system and also have anti cancer properties.
Ingredients.
For the marinade:
125ml red wine
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 cloves
2 sprigs fresh rosemary
2 bay leaves, fresh or dried
1 cinnamon stick, broken in two
1 tsp oregano
400g organic beef, diced
400g can organic chopped tomatoes
250g organic shallots, peeled
2 tbsp organic tomato puree
1 beef stock cube (low-salt)
Method.
Preheat oven to 180c / 160c (fan) / Gas Mark 4
- In a deep bowl mix together all the marinade ingredients along with the beef, cover and chill in the fridge for at least 3 ½ hours.
- Reserving the marinade liquid, drain the beef. At this point I pick out the cinnamon stick pieces, rosemary etc. and keep them with the reserved marinade liquid.
- Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a large frying pan and brown the beef. Once browned, place in an oven proof casserole dish that has a lid.
- Fry your whole peeled shallots in the same pan as you did the beef, until they turn golden on the outside. Remove and place with the beef in the casserole dish.
- Increase the heat on the frying pan and add your marinade liquid, chopped tomatoes, tomato puree, stock cube, and 100ml of water.
- Let the sauce reach boiling point and then take off the heat, transferring to the casserole dish. Mix all together, cover and cook in the oven for 2 ½ hours. I normally take a look and stir every hour whilst it’s cooking.
- Serve with a healthy carb and vegetables of your choice.
