A stifado is a slow-cooked casserole made with a large amount of onions in a tomato sauce. It is often made with rabbit or hare, using tiny pickling onions. Peeling and preparing these little onions is extremely time-consuming and fiddly, so instead I often use golden shallots, which have a lovely delicate onion flavour, or immature red onions (these look like large spring onions, with 3–4 cm reddish bulbs). Both these types of onion are available in produce markets in the spring.
Octopus makes a great stifado as the juices released during the long, slow cooking combine with the tomato and shallots to make a rich sauce.