Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Braciole






This wonderful classic Italian dish is the ultimate in comfort food and it plates well for a dinner party! It consists of flank steak pounded thin with a meat malot and then filled with garlic, sliced egg, pine nuts, spinach, and prosciutto and then rolled and slow cooked for a few hours until tender. It is delicious and not all that time consuming for something that looks so elegant on a plate!

 

 
Ingredients:

 
  • 4 lbs of flank steak
  • Kitchen string
  • 6 cloves of garlic minced
  • ¼ cup of olive oil
  • Provolone cheese, sliced
  • Fresh Italian parsley, chopped
  • ½ lb of prosciutto, thinly sliced
  • ½ cup of pine nuts
  • 2 cups of fresh spinach
  • Romano cheese, grated
  • Parmigiana Reggiano cheese , grated
  • 4 hard boiled eggs, sliced
  • 2 quarts of marinara sauce (see recipe for Sunday sauce or use a good jarred sauce like Midi)
  • 1 cup of dry red wine
  • ½ cup of fresh parsley, chopped
  • 1 sprig of rosemary
  • 1 spring of Italian oregano
 
Using a meat mallet, pound each flank steak until thin and tenderized. Lay flank steak out on a cutting board and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Spread minced garlic over surface of flank steaks. Lay spinach, pine nuts, provolone cheese slices, prosciutto slices, chopped parsley on top of steaks. Sprinkle with Romano cheese. Starting from the edge closest to you, roll the steak like a jelly roll taking care not to lose the filling. Tie with kitchen twine tightly at each end and also the in the middle of the roll. In a large braising pan, add the rosemary sprig and heat olive oil and then brown each roll on all sides and then remove. Remove the rosemary and discard. De glaze pan with red wine and simmer for five minutes to reduce. In a large stock pot, add sauce, basil, oregano, and the red wine reduction and stir well. Add the steak rolls and submerge in the sauce. Place in oven at 300 degrees and cover with foil. Slow cook for 1.5 hours.
Remove rolls and allow to cool slightly. Cut strings and slice into ½ inch thick slices. In a pasta bowl place some sauce in the bottom and then arrange the steak slices on top of the sauce. Garnish with grated Romano and Parmesan cheese and a parsley sprig.

 
May also be served on top of some good creamy polenta with a little sauce over top or with a side of pasta.

 
Serves 4 people.

1 comment:

  1. In the spirit of exhorting you to excellence --Where are the hard boiled egg slices used? Are they part of the roll or added later?

    ReplyDelete