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Dorothy's Stefado

“This is a Greek beef stew made with small onions. This is my mom's recipe, and every Fall without fail you could smell it simmering in the kitchen. Serve it with a large bowl of mashed potatoes. Of course a Greek salad, some feta & olives and crusty bread give this meal the final touches. The onions can be time consuming to clean, but well worth it when your family sits down to eat.”

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Reviewed: Nov. 28, 2009

Kathy, Thank you for posting your mom's Stefado, I think it is wonderful. I made a batch with half the amount of meat and onions, but left the rest of the ingrediants as written. It was fabulous with the fresh french bread for soaking the sauce. I have made this stew for years with all kinds of meat such as lamb, venison, rabbit, chicken and of course beef. From a 65 year old greek man that cooks better than most...Bravo!

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Yanni's

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Reviewed: Oct. 1, 2009

Good recipe! If you don't have pickling spice, you can make it yourself. The main ingredients are: cinnamon, mustard seed, bay leaves, allspice, dill seed, cloves, ginger, peppercorns, coriander, juniper berries, mace, and cardamom. So put a bit of all this, and you've got it!

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Weasel

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Reviewed: Nov. 30, 2007

Great recipe from Dorothy! She's got more than 200 others - Greek & American - in her book, From Our Hearts to Your Table - Recipes from a Greek American Family.

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starrmc

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Reviewed: Oct. 19, 2007

Personally I found it was too oniony for my taste. My boyfriend thought it was to die for though, ate it cold. I replaced the cinnamon stick with several tablespoons of cinnamon.

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Amanda

Cooking Level: Beginning

Living In: Gainesville, Florida, USA

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Reviewed: Jun. 27, 2007

Good! Very interesting... it's a sweet soup, and it tastes like tomato and cinnamon. I made a ton of changes though: I didn't have any pickling spices, so I used the extra bay leaf, 1 tsp cloves and pepper corns like another reviewer had suggested. I didn't have a spice bag, so I just put everything in and took out the bay leafs and the cinnamon stick once it was done. That all turned out well. I didn't have 2-3 hours to let it simmer, so I cooked it on high for about an hour, and it made the meat taste overcooked. Lower heat and longer simmer time is always better. This recipes would work really well in a crock pot over night.

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Teralyn Rose

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Reviewed: Jun. 20, 2007

The smell while cooking was devine !! I also cut down the meat (almost half), but used about double wine/water mix... even though I was cooking it on very low heat ?! To cut the acidity of the tomato paste and wine I added about 2 tsp of sugar. Will definately be making this more often. Note: If you don't have whole pickling spice use: 1ts whole cloves, more bayleaves (2), whole peper corns. It's not the same, but will add a bit more flavour.

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Melissa Scholte

Cooking Level: Expert

Home Town: Newcastle, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa

Living In: Uithuizermeeden, Groningen, Netherlands

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Reviewed: Jun. 3, 2007

This sounds like a great recipe, but i live in Australia and would like to know what are whole pickling spices, never heard of them here, maybe the greek version of them will help me understand. Thanks Ele

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diamond_ele

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Reviewed: Feb. 25, 2007

Our favourite Greek restaurant is closed for refurbishment at the moment. So I wanted to try and recreate my husbands favourite dish for his birthday. I managed it with this recipe. I scaled down the meat and onions for 6 people but kept the sauce the same. I'm glad I did as I still had to add a little more wine mixed with water even though I was simmering on very low.Thankyou to my Quality Cook friend CC who explained to me what a spice bag was and thankyou Kathy W for a recipe that my husband really enjoyed.

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KEZ

Home Town: St Austell, Cornwall, England, U.K.

Living In: Plymouth, Devon, England, U.K.

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Reviewed: Feb. 19, 2007

this is the identical recipe i've been using since getting back from greece a year ago - fantastic flavour, and the aroma is beautiful. The shallots can be a pain, but thats the only tedious part. Hard to mess up, easy to love

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pie

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Reviewed: Feb. 10, 2007

I don't know, maybe I did something wrong, but my family and I did not care for this. I omitted the bay leaf since my family does not like and also thought maybe the cinnamon could be cut down some. Thanks for the post.

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Cooking 101

Cooking Level: Expert

Living In: Rockford, Illinois, USA

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Reviewed: Apr. 8, 2004

I made this recently and can't believe how good this was. I always stayed away from this recipe even though it was one of my favorite greek meals. I thought it would be too much work, but boy was it worth it. Kathy is right, the smell of this simmering is so inviting! My family enjoyed this a lot and all you have to do is add a salad and some mashed potatoes! No more ordering this out at Greek restaurants. Now I can have even better at home!! Thanks!

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