Priest's Beef and Onion Ragout

Otherwise known as Papaz Yahnisi: papaz means priest in Turkish and yahni is hot pot or ragout as Angie Mitchell lovingly translates it.

a yahni means lots of succulent tasty onions

I was hoping to burble on about the joys of spring but Istanbul has been cold, wet and miserable for days now.  That’s why when Daughter No 1 said she was going to drop by on her way back from a week away  and have supper with us, I thought  ahaha let me make this yahni that I have been dying to try.

I had a vague recollection of a Cornucopia magazine with a cookery corner dedicated to yahni so I rooted it out (No 37, 2007 if you’re interested). I was looking for a story about the priest, you see, and sure enough, there it was but originally connected to a fish yahni dating back to at least 1764 when Christian monks and priests ate it while abstaining from meat. According to Berrin Torolsan, there were  many different types of yahni: parsley yahni, chickpea yahni, garlic yahni as well as a beef yahni like this one. But the essence of all of them is onion. Lots of onion. Very often yahni are lamb- or mutton-based and the addition of vinegar or indeed lemon or sour pomegranate juice is to cut the fattiness and help tenderize the meat. I love the sound of one that was made with chestnuts, quinces, dried apricots and prunes as described by Fahriye Hanım in 1882 who wrote Ev Kadını (The Housewife). It sounds just up my street and I will definitely try it next winter.

Ingredients for Papaz Yahnisi according to Angie Mitchell’s recipe

Serves 6

1kg/2lb lean cubed beef (kuş başı)

4 tbsp plain white flour

Salt and pepper to taste

4 tbsp butter/margarine

500g/1lb peeled pearl onions or shallots (arpacık soğanı)

10 garlic cloves

3 tbsp wine vinegar (üzüm sirkesi)

2 tomatoes, diced

1 tsp sugar

1tsp ground allspice (yeni bahar)

1 tsp ground cinnamon (tarçin)

Chopped parsley for garnish

Method

·         Toss the cubed beef in seasoned flour*. Melt the butter and sauté the beef for 5 mins. Add the pearl onions and whole cloves of garlic and sauté everything together for a further 5 mins.

·         Add the vinegar, tomatoes, sugar, and spices. Stir well and then add 2 cups of boiling water. Cover and cook slowly on a low heat for 2 hours or until meat is tender.

·         Serve hot with rice, garnished with chopped parsley.

Tips

1. *To toss meat in seasoned flour, just put the flour with S&P in a plastic bag. Add the meat and shake!
2. The smell of the meat cooking with those spices and onions is divine! I loved Berrin Torolsan for saying that even though pearl onions are attractive and taste good, they are fiddly to prepare so regular onions cut into half-moons is perfectly acceptable.
3. But if you decide to go with the pearl onions as I did, soaking them in boiling water for 10 mins helps enormously to peel them more easily.

I hope you like this dish as much as we did!  However Daughter No 1 reminded me gently that she has now become a vegetarian .....

dinner!

       Yahni ‘fed the Janissaries, it fed the poor, it nourished students and it sustained sultans’.

What more do you want?