Cooking beef the Italian way

Well, already I am breaking my resolutions. I had promised to write this on Sunday, or even Saturday. And here comes Monday, and I'm only getting around to it. Sorry kids, I was busy cooking. I will make it up to y ou. I promise.
Have you noticed that, when you look at Italian cooking, it is almost void of those big steaks that we Americans seem to be so proud of, and eat so many of? Indeed, that is true. There is only one "steak" recipe in Italian cooking, "bistecca alla fiorentina," and many people with stronger historical cooking chops than I feel that this dish is a result of the British influence in Florence. Missing their "Sunday joint," the Brits who expatriated to Tuscany, and settled around Florence, developed this enormous joint of grilled meat. It is a steak of huge proportions. Two pounds is about as small as they get. I have seen them go to 3.5 pounds.
Now, you must keep in mind that when Italians cook a steak of this size, it is intended as a meal for EVERYONE. You share. Everyone gets a few slices of the steak. There is no such thing as a two pound steak for an individual . "Tagliata" is sliced steak. You get a few slices of top quality meat, with lots of vegetables.

There IS, however, a tradition of braises. Slow cooked, using cheaper tougher cuts of meat, that become wonderful. There is a generic recipe, called "stracotto." I am not sure what the "stra" adds to the name (I shall ask my Italian teacher), but "cotto" is cooked. "Stracotto, " traditionally, is a beef roast cooked in barolo. That is fine, in Piedmont, where barolo is the "lingua franca" of wine. Here in the US, or even in other parts of Italy, where barolo can cost you a neat hundred bucks for a bottle, this isn't really what you're going to use. And fortunately, you can generalize the recipe to other red wines. The two requirements are that they have a "nose," (that is, they have some fruit and some flavor), and they have a high alcohol content.

Interestingly enough, in researching this family of variants on stracotto, no one seemed to admit of using a French wine. There were either Italian wines beyond barolo, or California wines, one of which is zinfandel.

Zinfandel has a very high alcohol content. In fact, it may have the highest alcohol content of any red wine. It certainly has the highest one for American reds. And I happened to have a started bottle of zinfandel that I had to use. So, "stracotto al zinfandel" was born. It's good. Try it.

This is another one of those recipes that requires a lot of time, but very little work. I encourage you to make it. Again, it is a dish to be shared, and during these cold months of winter, it's a good one to share.

You will need a chuck roast of about four pounds. Also, you will need onion, carrots and celery, as well as a bit of tomato or tomato paste. You will also need olive oil, butter, and beef broth. Salt and pepper, of course. Equipment wise, you will need a frying pan that can hold the roast and you will also need a heavy pot, like a dutch oven, that can go into the oven and is just big enough for the roast.

Let's get started. Turn on your oven to preheat it to 350. While that's happening , get out your food processor, and chop up, very fine, and separately from each other, an onion, two carrots, and two stalks of celery. Pour out a cup and a half of red wine, and have a can of beef stock ready.

Pour out enough olive oil to slick your frying pan and while it's heating up, salt and pepper the roast. When the oil is hot, brown it all over. This will take you less than ten minutes to do. Now put it aside, and keep the pan separate.

Put two tablespoons of olive oil, and one of butter, in that dutch oven. Put the onions in before you melt the butter and cook them at low heat until they just take on a golden color. Then add the other vegetables, and sweat them for about five minutes.

While this is happening, add the wine to that frying pan,(after you pour off the oil) and bring it to a boil, stirring up from the bottom, and let it boil for a minute. Then, put the beef in the pot with the vegetables, and pour in the wine. Add the beef stock, to 2/3 -3/4 of the way up the roast. Add either a half cup of chopped canned tomatoes, or a few tablespoons of tomato paste. Cover the pot and put it in the preheated oven. Try to turn the roast every twenty minutes, for a total of three hours of cooking.

For the first hour, you will wonder what is happening. In the second hour, the house will begin to smell wonderfully, and as you turn the meat, you will see it taking on a glazed look. In the third hour, the liquid will reduce wonderfully and the meat will become very tender.

After three hours, take the pot out of the oven, and let it cool down. I like to then slice the meat, and let it sit in the remaining sauce for a day or so, or longer. You don't have to skim fat, or anything like that. Warm it up again when you serve it, in the oven.

For this, I can only suggest polenta and some greens. It's a pretty solid winter meal. Something we all need. And ultimately, if you look at the ingredients, not too bad on your waistline. So I guess it's sort of temple food, right????