Beef Bamia

Beef Bamia

Bamia or Margat Bamia is an Iraqi stew made out of lamb or beef cubes, okra and tomato. This post is courtesy of my other half after knowing this dish from one of her colleagues; this is also the first time I will be posting an Iraqi dish as we don’t have any exposure on their cuisine. It is a really good dish and I am sure Filipinos and Spanish will appeciate this as the flavours are nearly similar to their stews, having said that I really love this dish and this will open a new type of cuisine in our home which means we will be starting to experiment on some of Iraq’s dishes and if you know of some good ones please post it on the comment below or send a link to your recipe.

Ingredients

800g Beef brisket, cubed
400g okra
3 cup beef stock
1/2 cup vinegar
1 large onion, chopped
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp cinnamon
6 large tomatoes, chopped
3 tbsp tomato paste
juice from 2 lemons
salt
freshly ground black pepper
oil

Method

1. Soak okra in a mixture of 1 cup water and 1/2 cup vinegar for 30 minutes. Drain and rinse okra then set aside.
2. In a pot add oil then brown beef on all sides. Remove form pot then set aside.
3. Add onions, garlic, cumin, coriander, cinnamon then sauté until fragrant.
4. Add the beef back together with tomatoes, tomato paste, beef stock, Bring it to a boil and simmer in low heat for 1 hour or until meat is tender. Add water if needed if stew becomes dry.
5. In a pan, add oil then sauté okra for 5 minutes. Add okra back to the stew pot together with lemon juice and simmer for 15 more minutes.
6. Turn heat of then serve with white rice.