Archive

ITALIAN RECIPES

Winter Special Stew

Beef Braised in Barolo Wine
Ingredients:
3 pounds beef, either rump roast or a similar cut, not too lean or it will be dry
A bottle of Barolo or similar full bodied tannic red wine
A large onion, or 2 if you prefer
A large carrot
A stalk of celery
A bay leaf
Peppercorns to taste
Butcher's twine
2 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons prosciutto fat (if need be use just 4 tablespoons butter)
1/4 cup cognac (optional)
Salt to taste.

Preparation:
Begin the day before you plan to cook the meat. Slice the onion, celery, and carrot, and put them in a bowl with the meat, bay leaf, and peppercorns.
Pour the wine over the mixture and marinate it until the next day, turning the meat occasionally.

Remove the meat, reserving the marinade, and pat the meat dry. Strain the marinade, bring it to a boil, and cook it until it's reduced by half. In the mean­time, tie the meat with string so it keeps its shape and brown it in a pot with the butter and prosciutto fat.

Once it's well browned on all sides, sprinkle the cognac over the meat, if you're using it, and light it. When the flames have gone out, season the meat with salt, pour the reduced marinade over it, add the vegetables that it marinated with, cover everything, and simmer over a low flame until the meat is done, about two hours.

When the meat is done remove it to a platter and remove the string. Remove and discard the bay leaf. Remove the vegetables with a slotted spoon and either put them through a food mill or blend them.

Degrease the sauce, stir the blended vegetables back into it, pour it over the meat, and serve. The meat should be so tender it could be carved with a spoon.
Serve it with mashed potatoes or a steaming polenta, and the other vegetables you prefer. And, of course, a bottle of Barolo.

Ghisau: A Sardinian Beef Stew
Ingredients:
2 1/4 pounds beef
An onion, minced
1/3 cup olive oil
1 1/3 pounds potatoes
10 ounces ripe plum tomatoes, blanched, peeled, chopped, seeded, drained and blended
2 ladles beef broth
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Shredded hot pepper to taste (optional)

Preparation:
Cube the meat, and peel and cube the potatoes.
In a broad terracotta pot, heat the oil and sauté the onion until it turns golden. Add the meat and brown it too, stirring the pieces about to brown all sides.
Add the blended tomatoes, broth, check seasoning, and reduce the heat to the barest simmer for a couple of hours or more, adding the potatoes after an hour.

Should the sauce thicken too much, dilute it with a little more broth. You can, if you want, also give it zing with some freshly shred­ded hot pepper.
Serve it steaming hot, with a Vermen­tino if you include the hot pepper, and with a Cannonau if you don't.
Serves 6.

Wild Boar with Juniper Berries
Ingredients:
A leg of boar, weighing about 3 pounds
1 tablespoon juniper berries
A clove of garlic
1/4 pound lardons
A half a medium onion
A 2-inch piece of carrot
A 2-inch stalk of celery
A bunch of parsley
A bay leaf
Good red wine
1/2 cup melted butter
1/3 cup broth
Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:
If you buy fresh boar, make sure that the animal was young. If it wasn't, marinate the meat for three days with a full bodied red wine. If you instead buy frozen meat, you will only need to thaw it.

Come cooking time, lardon the meat and preheat your oven to 430 F (215 C).
Grind together a clove of garlic, the juniper berries, a couple of grains of pepper, and a pinch of salt; rub the meat with this mixture and set it in a casserole.
Sprinkle the meat with the melted butter, crumble the laurel leaf over it, and pop it into the oven.

Roast the meat for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, mince and sauté the onion, celery, parsley, and carrot in a tablespoon of butter, then stir in the broth and heat through.
Add the herbs to the meat, sprinkle it with the wine, reduce the temperature to 390 F (195 C), and continue roasting for another 2 hours, turning the meat occasionally and basting it frequently with the drippings.

When the meat is done remove it to a serving platter. Reduce the drippings over a brisk flame, pour them over the meat, and serve. This goes well with roast potatoes.
Serves 4 to 6.

Ossibuchi alla Milanese
Ingredients:
4 slices of veal shank an inch thick and 6-7 inches across, about a pound and a half in all.
Flour
A small onion, minced
2 tablespoons butter
Salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup dry white wine
2/3 cup hot broth or water (have more handy)
1-2 tablespoons tomato sauce or 2 teaspoons tomato paste diluted in water (optional)
For the Gremolada (the mixture of herbs added at the end)
2 cloves garlic
The leaves of a 6-inch sprig of rosemary
2 leaves sage
A small bunch of parsley
The zest of a small lemon, grated
1-2 anchovies, rinsed and boned (quite optional)

Preparation:
Continuing with the intro­duction, as is the case with any recipe, much of the final success hinges upon the quality of the ingredients, so purchase your meat from a good butcher, and your saffron from a reputable spice merchant, and you should be fine.

The word ossobuco literally translates as "bone with a hole through it," which is an apt description of a veal shank. In selecting your meat, choose ossibuchi cut from the upper part of the shank (preferably the hindshank, which is more tender than the foreshank, and the pieces should be 2-3 fingers high).
The pieces should have marrow in the centers of the rings of bone. Connoisseurs consider the marrow, which gains a wondrously satiny texture as it cooks, the highlight of the dish and scoop it from the bone with tiny spoons called esattori, or tax agents.

Purists also prefer that their ossibuchi be served on a bed of plain white rice -- Italian risotto rice such as Arborio or Vialone Nano, though Oriental Basmati would also be nice -- that they may enjoy the meat's flavor to the fullest.
However, many people prefer to serve ossibuchi on a bed of risotto alla milanese, a tasty saffron-laced risotto whose renown has increased considerably after Gualtiero Marchesi, Italy's top chef, began serving it with a leaf of beaten gold laid over it (others may have done so before, but he caught people's attention).

Buon appetito!

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