One of my most vivid memory from my childhood kitchen is the huge number of pots and pans cooking simultaneously on the stove. In a kitchen of nearly 80 square feet, that also had a dining table, in any given moment there were at least 3-4 dishes cooking, and usually one or two were baked in the oven. No, this wasn’t cooking for a holiday meal, or for a Shabbat dinner, it was mom’s day to day cooking. In the days before weekends and holidays you couldn’t even enter the kitchen. Judging by the amount of dishes, you would think the whole neighborhood was invited to dinner. That was probably the reason that when I started to cook, I found myself cooking a 2 person meal in 4 different pots. Nowadays, my preferred cooking technique is a one pot meal.
Ingredients
2 lb beef cubes for stew
3 beef bones
1 onion diced
3 garlic cloves minced
1 cup celery root diced
1 cup parsnip diced
2 carrots diced
2 celery stalks chopped
10 prunes
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp ras el hanut
1 tsp cumin
½ tsp allspice
½ tsp cardamom
4 bay leaves
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 cup dry red wine
3-4 cups water
2 TBS olive oil
Heat olive oil in a deep pot over medium high heat. Sprinkel meat cubes with kosher salt and black pepper. When the oil is hot add beef cubes and fry to brown all sides. Remove beef from pot and set aside. Add onion and beef bones to the same pot and fry until onion is golden. If needed add a little bit of oil. Add garlic and fry one more minute. Add all ingredients and spices except the wine and water and mix well. Steam for 3 minutes. Add wine and water, mix and bring to boil. Add meat cubes into the pot, make sure the liquids cover them and bring to boil again. Lower heat and cook for about one and a half hours on low heat.
