"Fratellino." Do you all know that word? It's a good one. It means "little brother," but not necessarily in the birth sense. Someone whom you regard as "little brother", you can call fratellino. It sounds a bit like a frilly word, but that's Eyetalian for you.
I have a chosen little brother. Not gonna tell you who he is: let him tell you that, if he wants to. And when I was making this dish, it dawned on me: "this is his kind of meal." It is, too. He'll tell you that as well. So, here it is, "per il mio fratellino."
I learned this recipe, when channel surfing last week. There is a new cooking channel on, and one of the shows had the intriguing name "Bitchin' Kitchen."
Ok, Annalena has been called a bitch, more than once, and it's a title she bears proudly. The hostess of this show is a woman whom I could see growing up in Staten Island or in Brooklyn: a rough edged (I don't believe it), bleached blond Italian girl, with green nails and red high heels, who "tawks." (My NY friends will know what I mean). Anyway, she was doing a recipe as part of a show on what to do when you have no money. This is one of the recipes.
Now, I GUESS you can make this dish cheap. I didn't. I bought all of my veggies from the farmers market, and the beef was grass fed. The meat itself set me back 30 bucks, so already, we're getting a little high here. You add the other ingredients, and you're easily, EASILY pushing the 50 buck mark for the dish. It's good though. You can make this with an inexpensive cut of meat, I guess. I'll give some comments on that below.
If you use the cheaper cuts, I think the dish probably does fall into the "good. fast. cheap. Choose two" category, because it will be inexpensive, and it IS good. It is NOT a fast dish, however. My beef was much leaner, and I was able to take an hour off the cooking time, but it's still not a "20 minute dinner." So, get set for some serious kitchen time, but know you're going to have a lot of food. A LOT of food.
I'm reworking the instructions and ingredients for the dish, which you'll see if you watch the show and see the stew made.
First, you need root vegetables. Which ones and how many? Well , the how many is hard to say because your measurements here are going to be rather imprecise. Which ones? Well, this is up to you. I used parsley root, golden beets, carrots, and onions. Parsley root and golden beets aren't exactly standard supermarket fare, so modify these. Nadia used parsnips, onions, beets and carrots. I think the carrots are necessary. You could substitute sweet potatoes, or potatoes, or whatever you like. What you need to do is peel the peelable vegetables, and then cut them into evenly sized cubes. Fill a baking sheet with your veggies, and then add about six cloves of garlic, peeled, to them. Toss 3 tablespoons of olive oil and a big pinch of salt with the veggies, and then put the tray into a preheated, 375 degree oven, and let them roast, for 45 minutes.
Near the end of the roasting time, get your beef ready. You need 3 pounds of beef stew meat. Pat it dry, and then put it into a bag with half a cup of flour that has been mixed with a teaspoon of salt. Toss the stuff around, to coat the beef. Then, pour it all into a colander, to get rid of extra flour . Clean your sink with COLD water (it will make it MUCH easier to clean. Trust me).
Heat up about 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a wide pan. When it's hot, add enough meat to cover the pan, but don't crowd it. Leave it alone, for about three minutes to put a good, dark sear on it. Then turn it, and sear the rest of the meat. If you haven't done all of it in one layer, then do it again. Put all of the cooked meat into a bowl for a minute.
Off the heat, add about half to 3/4 cup of red wine to the pan. Move your face back, and let the steam come off. Then put this back on the stove, and stir up all the brown bits into that wine. When you've dissolved just about all of it, pour that over the meat.
By now, your vegetables will have been roasted. Get them out of the oven, and let them be for now. You can put them in a bowl, mixed together, if you like. Put the beef and the juices into a pot and add six cups of beef stock, or , if your beef stock is canned and/or strong (as mine was), use four cups of stock and two cups of water. Add a couple of bay leaves, a carrot, sliced in half, three stalks of celery, a few branches of thyme , and a handful of peppercorns. Bring this to a boil, then lower the heat, and let it cook away.
Now, here's where Nadia and I parted company. She calls for cooking this for two hours. For reasons totally lost to me, I tasted the meat after an hour, and it was more than fine. You do the same thing. Maybe my pieces were smaller than hers, maybe the meat was a different quality, who knows? Just taste it and if it needs more cooking, let it work for another half hour, at least.
When the meat is pretty much where you want it, pull out the carrot and celery and, if you can find them, the bay leaves and the thyme branches (it will NOT be easy). Add the veggies. Nadia also calls for adding a half cup of red lentils, the ones you will find as "dhal" in a health food store. I had some in the house (some of you will be saying "of course you did"), and used them. I guess they are there to thicken the stew a bit. You certainly don't need them, and some of them will settle down to the bottom of your pot and stick there, and will need to be cleaned. Your call.
Now, re-cover that pot, and let everything cook for another twenty minutes. Taste it, and correct for salt and pepper. Here's a hint from Annalena: the meat is going to taste underseasoned. Taste the liquid. That's going to be the flavor carrier here. Taste it as you go along, and adjust with more salt and pepper, if you need to.
When the dish is finished, if you taste it right away, all you will taste is fat. That's the nature of the dish. Let it sit for fifteen minutes. Taste it again. NOW, you're ready to eat it. If you want to, but really, remember the old saying that all stews are better the second day, and even better the third? Well, it's true. And if you let the thing cool down in your fridge, you can go in and scoop out the beef fat if you want to.
As a certified Eyetalian-american, I can't imagine eating this with anything other than polenta. Il fratellino is probably going to go for noodles. It's all good. I would put a salad of fennel and oranges out with it. Il fratellino might go for more of a coleslaw or a green salad, which is again, all good.
I think you'll find this dish to be something like a warm hug on a cold day. That's the intention. Don't go for the cheap angle, go for the good stuff, and you'll be happy you did.
I betcha fratellino is gonna make this tomorrow. Let' see...
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