Recipe: Tuscan Pot Roast (Stracotto)

TUSCAN POT ROAST (STRACOTTO)

"With the exception of the glorious bistecca Chianina, Tuscans don't eat a lot of beef. Once the T-bones have been removed from a Chianina carcass, however, something has to be done with the rest of the meat, and stracotto is one thing to do with it. This kind of pot roast exists all over Italy, a real Sunday dish, elegant, flavorful, and practical for the cook, since the sauce for the pasta and the meat cook all at once and together. Americans may find it odd to serve two courses with the same fundamental flavors, but to Italians it's perfectly normal. What makes this particular treatment Tuscan is the presence of a robust Chianti wine in the sauce. Any flavorful red wine with a good acidic balance will do."

3 1/2 pounds beef, such as top round, rolled and tied
3 or 4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
2 medium carrots, scraped and thinly sliced
2 medium yellow onions, thinly sliced
1 thick stalk celery, thinly sliced
3 sprigs rosemary, leaves only, chopped
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 cups dry red wine
1 pound very ripe fresh tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped, or 1 cup chopped canned tomatoes
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon unbleached all-purpose flour
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Using a small sharp knife, make incisions all over the meat to a depth of 1/4 to 1/2 inch and insert the garlic slices in them.

In a heavy saucepan over medium-low heat, gently saut the carrots, onions, celery, and rosemary in the oil until the vegetables are beginning to soften but not brown. Add the garlic-studded beef, raise the heat to medium, and brown the beef on all sides, turning frequently. Add the wine and let it boil until reduced to about 1/2 cup. As soon as it's reduced, stir in the tomatoes. Cover and let simmer for about 1 hour.

Work the butter and flour together to make a paste, then stir thoroughly into the cooking juices. Cover tightly, reduce the heat to low, and let cook at a bare simmer for 2 hours longer, adding a little hot water, wine, or broth if the liquid in the pan reduces too much.

When the meat is done, lift it out of the cooking juices and set aside to rest for about 15 minutes, then slice off three thin slices of meat. Chop them with a knife as finely as possible.

Degrease the juices in the pan, setting aside about 1/2 cup of the meat juices to garnish the meat. Season with salt and pepper. Add the chopped meat to the remaining juices and serve this as a sauce over pasta for a first course. Serve the meat as a second course with the reserved juices as a garnish. (This is often served with a contorno of pur ed potatoes.)

Makes 8 to 10 servings
Excerpted from Flavors of Tuscany by Nancy Jenkins
Copyright 1998 by Nancy Harmon Jenkins. Excerpted by permission of Broadway, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.