All stews all the time…

Growing up, in addition to boop, we had lots of stews. Boop is, in fact, a stew. Come to think of it, most of what we ate was in stew form.

I looked this up because I was curious about this. Why all the stews? Well, it turns out that the:

principal food on the Macedonian menu is stew, a mixture of meat and vegetables cooked by simmering. Stews are prepared spicy, combined with roux (a thickening agent), and always eaten with bread. Other main staples are feta cheese; roasted banana peppers; and zelnik, a flat pastry with cheese, leek, or spinach filling.

So there it is. Throw in some salad, fresh fruit and fish dishes and that was pretty much it.

I found a recipe online that is very close to what I recall we ate.

Macedonian Stew

• 3 onions, chopped
• 3 carrots, chopped
• 3 celery stalks, chopped
• 5 potatoes, chopped
• cup tomato puree
• 500g chuck steak (we used many different meats)
• 1 tbs sweet paprika
• olive oil
• salt & pepper

Preparation:

Place onions and olive oil in the pan and fry until brown.

Add the meat and the sweet paprika, mix well, if required add more tomato puree.

Add all other ingredients and cook on a low heat for 3 hours. Serve with bread. (Of course! You have to “makie” (sop up) the liquid.

Sounds boring maybe but I am seriously thinking about making some stew. In fact, if I get a crock pot, I could make stews all the time.