Braciola

Braciola is an item that I grew up eating every Sunday at grandma’s house for dinner.  It was one type of braised meat of many that we would enjoy during our Sunday dinner.  I always went for it before the sausage, meatballs or braised short ribs.  The reason for this was simple… it was something that we only had on Sundays. During the week we might have meatball parmesan sandwiches, Spicy Italian sausage in a white bean, and escarole braise or even short ribs with polenta,  but never did we have braciola. I actually don’t even recall seeing it on many menus when dining at what seemed to be the only kind of restaurant we had in Jersey, Italian. 

The draw of the braciola was simple it was very flavorful cut of beef that was packed with many different flavors from herbs, cheese and pine nuts.  It was braised until fork tender in the Sunday gravy and simply put was delicious.  So to break it down we use a traditionally tougher cut of meat, the chuck,  this is used because it has more marbling, fat throughout the meat, which gives it more flavor and since we are going to braise it for a long time it will become very tender.  You take a thin slice and pound it even thinner then rub it with Extra Virgin Olive Oil, chopped herbs, garlic, cheeses and pine nuts.  It is then rolled and tied.  Sear it heavily and braise it in the gravy for 3 hours or so at a low simmer until it is fork tender.  Then enjoy.

 Now that we have this as an item on our menu at Potenza I have come to realize it is not just for Sunday dinner and should be eaten all week long.  I also began thinking that why limit it to solely an Italian restaurant.  So I figured I might as well have some fun with this and share a slightly less Italian take on it and served a mushroom and onion stuffed braciola for a special at Zola Wine and Kitchen last week.  The dish turned out great and we sold out of a lot faster than I would have thought.  It seems that I am not they only that has a fondness for very flavorful stuffed and braised braciola. 

 I am currently playing with some other filling ideas to see which one works the best for our winter time lunch menu at the Kitchen.  So over the course of the next few weeks I will be playing with these ideas to get that answer.  Will it be the mushroom and onion, garlic-boiled egg and parsley, the classic herbed parmesan with pine nuts or will it be a slight departure of a braised beef osso buco stuffed braciola?

Tags: Braciola