This is a meat dish the preparation of which takes, in accordance with old recipes, days of patient preparation even before it comes close to the stove. Old recipes insist that the dish not be eaten immediately after it is cooked, however long and over however gentle a heat it had been cooked. Pašticada, the old masters will tell us, must be allowed to cool slowly, be cut into chunks, browned again and only then served in its own strained juices.