Tortellini at Midnight by Emiko Davies

Author:Emiko Davies
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Hardie Grant Publishing
Published: 2018-12-11T16:00:00+00:00

NOTE

Both the filling and the pasta can be prepared the day before you want to make the agnolotti. You can use any meat for the filling. Instead of the spinach, cabbage, any wild weeds or even escarole salad, which has a slightly bitter flavour, are commonly used. Tougher leaves such as cabbage will have to be blanched for a few minutes in boiling water before using.

Brasato al Barolo

BEEF BRAISED IN RED WINE

This is my idea of a perfect wintry Sunday meal. It’s low-maintenance, leaving you free to potter about; but, like other things that are slow-cooked, its main ingredients include time and care. Brasato comes from the word ‘brasare’ (which, interestingly, sounds like ‘braise’), or to cook in brace or charcoal embers, as stews were once cooked in cast-iron pots set in the middle of the embers of the fireplace and left for hours.

There are just three things you really need to pay attention to for this delicious meal. A whole bottle of Barolo (or any other Nebbiolo-based grape) to cover the meat serves as a tenderiser and flavour-enhancer – I cannot recommend enough that you choose a wine that you like the taste of; it doesn’t have to be expensive or even a Barolo, but do pick one that you would happily drink yourself. Don’t think that you can use a wine that is corked or tastes like vinegar for this pot roast, as it will, remarkably, still taste like that imperfect wine once cooked.

The beef should have a little marbling or connective tissue in it; if it is too lean it can easily become dry after cooking for so long (some recipes call for lardo or pancetta cut into thin strips to be added to the brasato to incorporate some fat and flavour to the otherwise lean, muscular meat of Piedmont’s native Fassone cattle). Ask your trusted butcher for a simple roast from around the shoulder. It’s known as sottopaletta in Piedmont or cappello del prete, ‘the priest’s hat’.

But the best way to ensure a good brasato is time. Prepare it well in advance, which makes your Sunday meal even more hands-off. A whole night’s rest after cooking it is always a good idea (even obligatory, I would say) – the meat relaxes, the sauce thickens and intensifies – but even a couple more nights will do it good.

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