More winter warmer comfort food today with this wholesome Turkish beef stew with pearl onions recipe; etli soğan yahnisi.
When it’s a cold day, there’s a biting wind outside, and you’ve made this stew beforehand, it’s a lovely feeling when you come home to a warm, aroma-filled kitchen.
Because this is a really simple, hearty stew but it’s packed with flavour – and wonderfully spicy aromas.
Prepping Turkish Pearl Onion & Beef Stew
We’re all about seasonal eating again with etli soğan yahnisi – classic comfort food – because winter is the time when you will see lots of fresh pearl onions (arpacık soğan) on the local markets.
Along with your meat, these pearl onions (also known as baby onions) are your main ingredient.
When we first moved to Fethiye, we used to buy them to make pickles, not realising how they were used to transform stews and casseroles.
Obviously – and thankfully – we now know differently.
And although we do still pickle them (they’re great!), they’re a regular winter months’ purchase from the Çalış Sunday Market and a regular feature in our winter stews.
Soak First
As you can see in the photo, the pearl onions are going into our hearty beef stew, whole.
That means they need to be peeled, beforehand.
To make life easier, some people plunge them into boiling water for a few minutes and then allow them to cool before tackling them.
As for us, we just soak them in a bowl of water for 10 minutes or so whilst we deal with our beef stew meat.
Onto The Meat
For this pearl onion and beef stew, you need a stew beef that is one of the cheaper cuts – one that will hold its shape but tenderise as it slowly cooks.
Our local butcher here in Fethiye sells the meat we use as ‘gulaşlık‘ (for goulash).
This is beef from the shoulder and neck area of the cow.
In the UK, ‘braising steak‘ is good to use. Brisket or chuck steak too.
If you’re in the US, chuck roast or chuck steak.
These are all muscular parts of the cow that are relatively lean (we cut excess fat from the meat) so require long, slow cooking.
But the result is a really delicious stew – especially when cooked along with our other ingredients.
We buy this meat ready-cubed (kuşbaşı) but remove the excess fat and then cut it into smaller pieces – roughly 1 inch cubes.
And Back To The Onions
If possible, do try to get pearl onions because they have a lovely sweetness after they’ve been cooked in the stew.
If all else fails, another type of onion you could use is shallots.
Any small onion that you can leave whole.
Once they’ve been soaked, you just need to slice the top of the onion off with a sharp knife and peel the skin away.
I do this by hand but you can peel them with your knife if you like.
A Pearl Onion & Beef Stew By Any Other Name
‘Yahni‘ is one of the Turkish words for a stew and – with slight spelling variations – a similar word is used to describe stew in countries around South Asia, the Middle East and the Balkans.
The word yahni is said to have originated in Persia in mediaeval times and spread from there.
For our part, this Turkish pearl onion and beef stew recipe – etli soğan yahnisi – is also called ‘papaz yahnisi’ which means ‘priest’s stew.’
The dish is from the Kırklareli Province which is up there in Trakya (Thrace) in the northwest; close to the borders with Greece and Bulgaria.
Which would make sense with the Balkan connection.
Greek cuisine has ‘yahni’ dishes. Bulgarian cuisine has ‘yahniya’ and Albanian cuisine has ‘jahni.’
All of which are soups and stews that make a hearty meal for cold winter days.
Interestingly, the famous Greek beef stew, stifado – which is very similar to our Turkish soğan yahnisi – hasn’t been given the label, yahni.
More detailed food history research for another day…
On with our stew!
Cooking Our Pearl Onion & Beef Stew
If possible, to make life easier for yourself, use a stew pot or deep casserole dish that is oven proof but that can also go on the hob – because the hob is where we begin proceedings.
Whilst your oven is heating up to 180 degrees Celsius (355 degrees Fahrenheit), all of your ingredients – except your pearl onions – will be going into your pan, in stages, on the hob.
Over a medium-high heat add your butter and beef pieces, stirring so that they don’t stick to the bottom of your pan, too much.
A little is okay because you’ll be able to scrape the lovely sticky brown bits off the bottom of the pot as your meat starts to release its juices.
And The Rest Of Our Ingredients
After a few minutes, once your meat has browned, you can start to go in with the rest of your ingredients.
- First of all, add your vinegar. Turkish soğan yahnisi doesn’t have any alcohol in it. But if you want to, at this stage, you can add a splash of red wine – around 150 millilitres.
- Next, we’re adding our spices and our garlic. We love a sweet garlicky flavour so we add four garlic cloves. These only need to be very roughly chopped as they’ll dissolve into the stew as it cooks. As for the cinnamon, we use cinnamon sticks instead of the ground version, here. Just the one stick and you will get those wintery comforting aromas almost immediately.
- In with the chopped tomato, tomato paste (salça), bay leaf and hot water or beef stock – enough water to completely cover your ingredients – stir, put on the lid and into the oven for an hour.
The reason we don’t add our pearl onions at this point is because we want them to keep their shape and they’ll go too soft if they’re in the stew at this point.
After an hour or so, we fry our pearl onions in olive oil over a medium high heat for 5 minutes to give them a bit of colour.
And then we add them to our stew.
You can check at this point to see if you need to add any more of your water or stock.
You don’t want it to be too soupy. But you don’t want it to be too dry, either. It is a stew, after all.
When you put the yahni back into the oven, reduce the heat to 160 degrees Celsius (320 degrees Fahrenheit) and then leave it to cook for another hour.
After an hour, check your meat is tender as cooking times will differ depending on the type of beef you have used.
Time To Eat
Obviously, this is the best bit!
A very simple dish but one of the best beef stew recipes as far as we’re concerned.
We leave the stew to rest – lid on – for at least half an hour just to let the stew cool and settle a little.
And then we like to serve our stew in heated clay pots with some baked potato wedges and fresh crusty bread on the side.
Oh, and don’t worry about leaving leftovers, either.
It tastes great heated up the next day!
Our Recipe For Turkish Pearl Onion & Beef Stew
Etli soğan yahnisi is a proper weekend winter meal treat in our household.
One of those delicious recipes that is easy to make and never disappoints.
Let’s get started!
Pearl Onion & Beef Stew Recipe – Etli Soğan Yahnisi
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- 500 grams stew beef (braising steak or chuck steak)
- 300 grams pearl onions (or shallots, peeled & left whole)
- 1 large tomato (roughly chopped)
- 4 cloves garlic (peeled & roughly chopped)
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- 1 stick cinnamon
- 2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 2 teaspoons dried oregano (or thyme)
- 1 bay leaf
- 20 grams butter (approximately)
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 tablespoon vinegar
- 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- salt (to season)
- 400 millilitres hot water (or beef stock)
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First of all, place your pearl onions into a bowl of water to start to soften the skins.
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Meanwhile, take your chuck steak or other stew beef and trim off and discard the excess fat before cutting into roughly 1 inch cubes.
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Now begin to preheat your oven to
180 °C. -
Add the butter to your pan and place it over a medium high heat on the hob, placing your beef inside the pan as the butter starts to melt.
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Sear your beef for a few minutes, stirring it with a wooden spoon until it begins to release its juices.
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Increase the heat a little and now add your vinegar to the pan.
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Stir around for a couple of minutes before adding your garlic, spices and salt and pepper.
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Stir those in well and now add your chopped tomato, tomato paste, bay leaf and stock (or hot water).
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Stir and cover before placing into your preheated oven for 1 hour.
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Meanwhile, you can peel your pearl onions. Cut the tops with sharp knife and peel the skin away, leaving them whole.
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Add your olive oil to a frying pan and saute your onions over a high heat for a few minutes until they are taking on colour.
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After 1 hour, remove your stew from the oven and give it a stir. Add more liquid if necessary along with your pearl onions.
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Cover and place in the oven for a further 60 minutes, reducing the temperature to160 °C.
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After one hour, remove your stew from the oven and test the beef to check it is tender.
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If it is tender, leave your stew to rest for 30 minutes or so with the lid on before serving.
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Serve your soğan yahnisi with crusty bread and / or mashed potato or potato wedges.
- Nutritional information for the stew is meant as a guide only. Values will differ depending on the produce used.
- Please do your own due diligence if you have any special dietary requirements.
- Alcohol isn’t often used in Turkish cooking but if you want to add some red wine to your soğan yahnisi, we sometimes pour in around 150 millilitres at the same time as we add the vinegar.
- The type of vinegar you add is up to you. We use standard Turkish grape vinegar (üzüm sirkesi).
- Depending on the type of stew beef you use, cooking times for your soğan yahnisi might differ.
Serving: 1Calories: 391kcalCarbohydrates: 12gProtein: 25gFat: 28gSaturated Fat: 11gPolyunsaturated Fat: 2gMonounsaturated Fat: 13gTrans Fat: 1gCholesterol: 96mgSodium: 162mgPotassium: 727mgFiber: 3gSugar: 5gVitamin A: 605IUVitamin C: 14mgCalcium: 71mgIron: 4mg
If you love dishes like this, check out the stews and casseroles section of our Turkish recipes collection for some other ideas.
Afiyet Olsun!