Meat and Vegetables in Sač

Hello, Chefs!😋

How's your cooking going? Anything new and delicious on the menu? Or just the usual everyday dishes? Here, it's mostly normal, but there are a few things worth mentioning.
Last weekend, on Saturday, we visited some friends. The primary purpose was to socialize, as we hadn't seen each other for some time, but the upcoming St. Martin's Day holiday on Tuesday provided an excuse. In Slovenia, according to popular belief, this is the day when must turns into wine, and the new wine harvest is usually celebrated. It lasts about a week, at least half the population celebrates it by tasting young wine, and it can be quite joyful.

Well, I should mention that I'm more of a beer lover; I don't know much about wine. But anyway, that's no reason not to have fun with friends we haven't seen in a while. When we get together, we always prepare food together.

This is not a recipe as usual, but rather a method for preparing or roasting food over a fire. All vegetables and meat can be prepared this way; I can't remember anything that couldn't be ready with what we have here. Potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, and zucchini grow everywhere. Or am I wrong?

My friends bought a so-called Sač, which is a large cast-iron pot with a lid. In English, it could be roughly translated as "traditional Balkan Earthenware/Cast Iron Dome," in which all the ingredients are slowly cooked, covered with a lid on which embers are placed.
Btw: in the picture, the lid is at the bottom.

First, we quickly browned the meat - pork ribs and beef chunks. Those who don't eat meat can skip this step. Here, people often prepare octopus this way, or just vegetables.

When the meat was browned, we took it out and added the vegetables, potatoes, peppers, onions, garlic, carrots, and leeks, and browned them for a few minutes.

Then we added meat on top, covered it with a lid, and placed embers on it.

Then it is slowly simmered for about 2 hours. Due to the slow cooking and steaming, all the ingredients retain their flavors and are very juicy in the end.
But, as with any such process, and when burning wood, someone has to monitor it because everything may burn.
Well, I wasn't the stoker, I was wandering around :)

😋 📷 😋

Apology for St. Martin's Day, young wine.
Red is Refošk variety, and white is Malvazija. Both are open young wines, from barrels, not yet bottled.