Today we’re making a classic Italian winter recipe: brasato al barolo. This is beef that is slow cooked in Barolo wine. This Piemonte regional specialty is my go-to Sunday feast when it’s bitterly cold outside. It’s a dish that pairs beautifully with winter moods, blazing fireplaces and melancholic jazz tunes playing in the background while you cook. Bonus hygge points if it’s raining outside (or better yet, snowing).
Brasato al Barolo recipe
Slow cooked beef bathed in Barolo wine is as Piemontese as it gets. The trick is marinading the meat and employing good quality wine. The better the wine, the better the final outcome. The rule my Piemontese Nonna applied was one bottle of wine per kilo of meat. Prime quality of other ingredients is equally important. A word about the meat cut. Pick a beef cut that is suitable for braising, like brisket, sirloin or round. But also one that’s not too lean, or it will be dry and flaky. We want juicy and fork-tender.
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The Italian name for the ideal cut for brasato al barolo is “cappello del prete” (priest’s hat), which is a triangular bovine shoulder muscle. The meat has a slight vein of connective tissue that makes it particularly tasty and that melts during the slow-cooking.
Ingredients
One 3-lb (1.3 Kg) piece of beef
Extra virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, peeled and left whole
1 large white onion, quartered
1 carrot
1 celery rib
1 bay leaf
1 rosemary sprig
3 juniper berries
5 cloves
Salt and pepper
1½ – 2 bottles of Barolo wine
Method
Tie the meat with butcher’s twine so it will keep its shape. Marinade the meat overnight in the wine with the vegetables and aromatics. No salt!
Filter the wine through a fine mesh and set aside for later.
Divide the juniper berries, bay leaf, cloves and rosemary to one side for later.
Finely chop the wine-flavored garlic, carrot, celery and onion.
Heat 5 Tbsp. of good olive oil in a heavy-bottomed stock pot or Dutch oven.
Finely chop the carrot, celery, onion and garlic and cook in the pot until translucent. Remove the vegetables from the pot and set aside for later.
In the remaining olive oil, sear the meat over a high flame. Once evenly browned, add the vegetables back to the pot, all the saved aromatics, and the red wine used for the marinade. Season with salt and pepper.
Lower the flame, cover with a tight-fitting lid lid and braise gently over medium-low heat for 3 hours.
Once cooked, let the braised meat rest for an hour before serving.
Cut the brasato across the grain and serve with the warm wine sauce, accompanied by mashed potatoes or steaming polenta. And, of course, another bottle (or more) of Barolo.
