Beef Braciole

Last year, Alex and I went to a wine tasting organized by some people from Cellar Tracker. It was a lot of fun and we met several interesting people. Afterward, Alex decided that he wanted to host one and have the theme be Italian wine. He asked the other people from this group if they would be willing to put in some money so that we could get some really nice wine. They agreed so we picked a date and Alex went ahead and bought some fairly expensive Italian wines.

Two weeks before the tasting, Alex sent out an e-mail to confirm that everyone was still going to come. Slowly, everyone dropped out. This left us with several bottles of wine that we had intended to split with people who would pay a share for them.

Since that fell through, we tried to decide what we were going to do with the wine. Alex didn't want to sell it because he really did want to taste it. We tried to figure out who we could share with and for what occasion. Luckily for us, we have some really good friends who are always willing to drink wine we serve them and bring some delicious food along to accompany it.

Thus our next Iron Chef dinner was decided. Italian food, so that we had an excuse to drink the wine.

It so happened that we were up for main dish, so I did some research and found a dish that I thought would be great to accompany the delicious wine.

Beef Braciole
From the Italian Chef
Serves 4

1 lb boneless beef round, cut into 4 thin slices approximately 1/3 inch thick
4 slices of prosciutto
1 tablespoon pine nuts
2 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 tablespoons parsley, chopped
1/2 cup olive oil
2-28oz cans imported Italian tomatoes
1/4 cup tomato puree
2 bay leaves
3 fresh basil leaves, torn into small pieces
1 medium yellow onion, chopped fine
2 carrots, peeled and chopped fine
2 celery stalks, chopped chopped fine
1 cup dry red wine
Flour spread for dredging
Salt & pepper to taste

Place each slice of beef between 2 sheets of plastic wrap and pound with a meat pounder (or a heavy skillet!) until 1/4 inch thick. On top of this, sprinkle the meat with salt and pepper. Lay the slices of prosciutto on the beef.

On top of the prosciutto, sprinkle the pine nuts, cheese, garlic, and parsley. Roll the beef up over it and tuck in the ends. Tie each meat roll with some kitchen twine.

Heat half of the oil (about 1/4 cup) in a large skillet over medium heat. While the oil is heating, roll the meat in some flour and shake off the excess. Add meat to the heated oil and brown on all sides (this takes about 15 minutes). Remove from heat.

Heat the remaining olive oil over medium heat in a large pan (I like to use my dutch oven). Add the onion, carrots, and celery and cook under the vegetables are tender, about 10 minutes. Add the meat to the pan as well as the bay leaves and some more salt and pepper.

To this pan, add the red wine and cook until most of the liquid evaporates. Add the cans of tomatoes to the pan. (The original recipe said to puree these, but I left them chunky). Add 1.75 cups of water to the pan. Add the tomato puree. Lower heat so that the sauce is simmering, and cook for an hour and a half to two hours (until tender).

When the beef is done, you'll serve it over the gnocchi (with the sauce from the braciole pan). Gnocchi recipe on Wednesday!