Birjam is a traditional Albanian food of the province of Dibra in the Northeast of Albania, a recipe which in our family we learned and preserved from our friends from Dibra. This Beef and Rice Recipe is the main dish where the main product is rice and meat. Once this dish used to cook with ram neck, but today we will bring it with beef.
It also cooks with well ripe fresh tomatoes, which give it color, aroma, and taste to this dish. Birjami flavors with black pepper, and being the only spice in this recipe, we use a little more than we usually do in our daily cooking recipes.
We can cook and serve this dish every day, but also at the weekend. Albanian grandmothers used to prepare this dish the day before and cover it with a woolen cover, which kept the cooking warm to serve for the next day. So it is a cooking recipe that you can eat the coming day, and you can take it with you to work or prepare it for dinner for tomorrow’s lunch if you do not have time to cook early in the morning for your family.
Ingredients 4- 6 Servings
- 400-500 g beef
- 2 – glasses of rice
- 4 – glasses of beef stock
- 3- medium ripe tomatoes
- 1- small onion
- 2 tbsp of butter
- 2 tbsp of olive oil
- salt
- 10-12 ground black pepper grains
Directions
- First, we will boil the meat to have the meat juice ready for cooking the Birjam. We will throw the beef cut into pieces in a pot of cold water, 1-1.5 liters of water until the meat covers, a little salt, and we will boil it well.
- Meanwhile, we cut the onion finely and sauté it in a non-stick saucepan with olive oil and one tablespoon of butter, and after it gets a light color, add the meat juice little by little so that the onion softens completely.
- We will add the meat in pieces without bones and the rest of the butter and stir-fry it for a few minutes.
- Meanwhile, peel the tomatoes from the skin and seeds and grate them with a grater.
- Once the meat and onions are well cooked, add the minced tomatoes and a little salt.
- We will also mix the tomatoes, and after they completely melted, we will add the freshly ground black pepper. Add the washed rice with hot water. Once we cooked it for a few minutes, we will add the hot meat juice. The quantity of stock is one rice and two meat stock as we do for the traditional pilaf.
- Let them simmer with the lid covered on medium heat for 15-20 minutes until the liquid is completely absorbed.
- Serve it warm sprinkled with ground black pepper at the moment.
Bon Appetit!
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