Comfort Food

So I just finished reading this book, and its called Lucky Girl. I must say, it was very interesting. The book is about this young Taiwanese girl who was adopted by an American family at the age of 8 months. She later goes back to get to know her Taiwanese family, and discovers her heritage. Now usually, books like this are sappy and she uncovers some deep dark family secret. But this book is a true story, and it really goes through the emotions and perils of adoption. It's very well written, entertaining, and my favorite part, brutally honest. Definitely worth reading. Heres a link to the book:

Lucky Girl: A Memoir

Now, my post is entitled: Comfort Food. All of you know, everytime I post a recipe, I tell you its my favorite food. But, those of you close to me know that I absolutely love anything cooked with yogurt. Yogurt pasta, Kiba fi labaniya, Mahshi Ajoor, shish barak etc, etc. So now I shall share with you my favorite yogurt recipe, ( #2 being my greek yogurt pasta.)

Shakriya.

The name alone sounds comforting. Shukur means to give thanks, and Shakriya almost sounds like it is thanking you for eating it.  Everytime I eat this meal, I feel like all is well in the world, and I want to personally thank the delightful combination of meat, yogurt, and rice in my plate.And I do, by enjoying every last bite of it. I think I'm a fat person living in a thin person's body, desperately and slowly coming out.

So heres the recipe, enjoy! =)

Ingredients:

1) 2 pounds of stew meat OR if your feeling particular rich that day, two pounds of cut up ribeye ( without the bone.)

2) 1 Large onion sliced

3) 2 tablespoons of allspice ( Or arabic pepper, that brown powder.) 

4) 12 cups of water

5) 2 large containers of GREEK yogurt ( you cannot use any other kind of yogurt, only  greek. You can find this @ publix, trader joes, most organic food stores.)

and thats it for the ingredients! How simple is that?

Now to prepare the food.

Take a large pot and melt a teeny bit of butter and some olive oil, and add the stew meat and onions and a sprinkle of salt. Brown the stew meat a little bit and then add the water and allspice.

Bring it to a boil, and then turn the heat down and let it simmer for one hour.

After one hour, check the stew meat. It should be done and tender. If you cook it on high for an hour, its going to get very chewy and hard. The key is to cook it on medium to low heat, just so that its simmering, so that it slowly cooks and becomes tender.

Near the end of cooking your meat, take out another large pot, and put it on medium low heat. Take the greek yogurt and dump it into the pot. You have to constantly wisk it until it becomes liquidy and warm. Once its warm and more liquid like, turn the heat off. You cannot let it boil. If it boils, the yogurt will fall apart. If it does fall apart, just put it in a blender, or use a handmixer like I do.

Slowly start to add the stew meat water. I usually do a cup at a time and wisk it in. You need about 9 to 10 cups, depending on how watery you want it. If you want it thicker, then add less water. Once your done, keep wisking it. Again, if the yogurt falls apart ( and it should'nt if you are wisking) use blender or hand mixer.

Strain the meat and onions out and add it to the yogurt mixture. At this point you can taste it and add salt if you want or more allspice, but I usually let whoever is eating to add it to their own plate.  enjoy!

For a side, I usually cook the rice in the stew meat water, its yummy and a beef broth. I also saute some vermicilli noodles in the pot before I add the water and rice.