Biftekia Baked with Briam
Biftekia and Briam are both classic Greek recipes. I combine them in this dish, essentially a Mediterranean sheet-pan recipe, for an all-in-one, easy, healthy meal. This is a great example of how to change the geography of your plate, placing equal of not more emphasis on vegetables over protein. Kids will love it, too!
Ingredients
For the Biftekia
- 3/4 lb Ground Beef or a combination of ground beef and lamb or ground beef and pork or chicken
- 1 large onion coarsely chopped
- 2 garlic cloves crushed with the side of a knife
- 4 plum tomatoes (fresh, ripe) coarsely chopped
- 1/2 cup red wine
- 3-4 tbsp extravirgin Greek olive oil
- 1 cup plain fresh breadcrumbs
- Greeksea salt to taste
- Pepper to taste
- 1 tbsp dried Greek oregano
For the Veggies
- 1 medium zucchini cut into a 1-inch dice
- 3-4 small-to-medium potatoes preferably organic, unpeeled, and diced like thezucchini
- 3-4 fresh, firm plum tomatoes, cubed
- 2 large garlic cloves
- 1 cup fresh basil leaves
- 4 -5 fresh marjoram sprigs, leaves removed
- 2 -3 tbsp extravirgin Greek olive oil
- Sea salt to taste
Instructions
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Place the ground meat in a mixing bowl. Pulse the onion, garlic, and tomato in the bowl of a food processor until completely pulverized and liquid. Add to the ground meat, together with the red wine, olive oil and breadcrumbs. Season with salt, pepper and oregano. Knead well.
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Oil a baking pan. Shape the ground meat mixture into 9 or 10 oval biftekia (burgers), placing them in rows in the baking pan.
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Rinse out the food processor bowl and puree the herbs, garlic, olive oil and salt.
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Place the vegetables in a mixing bowl and toss with the herb - olive oil mixture. Strew the vegetables evenly around the biftekia. Cover with parchment and foil and bake in a preheated oven at 350F/170C for about an hour, or until everything is tender and thoroughly cooked.