Florentine Beef and Pepper Stew
by Rosemarie Scavo
I’m putting this whole story in because it’s just that good.

Backstory

The year was 1418. Florence’s elders were convening to address a pressing issue that had been neglected for years: an enormous hole in the roof of Santa Maria del Fiore. In 1296, construction had begun on the cathedral that was supposed to flaunt Florence’s newfound status as one of Europe’s most important economic centres. Instead, year after year, the high altar of a city enrichened by the silk and wool trades was subject to the whims of mother nature: downpours in the colder months and the scorching heat in summer. Rejecting the Gothic flying buttresses and pointed arches of their northern Italian city-state rivals like Milan, the elders announced a contest for designing what would then be the largest cupola or dome on earth.

Leading architects from near, far and wide flocked to Florence for their shot at fame and the chance to win the coveted sum of 200 florins. The ideal proposal would not include a central pillar to hold up the dome, despite many an architect insisting that this was the only way. A homely and hot-tempered goldsmith’s solution to this architectural conundrum soon captured the project’s overseers’ imagination. Filippo Brunelleschi, reputed for being both a buffoon and a genius, said he would build two domes, one inside supporting the outer cupola and with no scaffolding.

By 1420, Brunelleschi had managed to convince the overseers of the brilliance of his scheme and was made provveditoreor superintendent of the cupola project. When building commenced later that year, the amateur architect more than proved his worth by inventing a series of lifting mechanisms which were capable of raising even the heaviest building materials up to 180 feet above ground.

One of those building materials was a type of terracotta famous for its vibrant red colour and resistance to frost made in the nearby hilltop town of Impruneta. A true perfectionist, Brunelleschi made a point of visiting Impruneta to personally supervise the production of the tiles that would eventually grace the exterior of the cathedral’s outer cupola. The fornacini or kiln workers laboured long hours to get the results Brunelleschi wanted. During the second and final firing of the tiles, the provveditore noticed that the workers would often put a large pot inside the kiln close to its opening. Later on, they would then help themselves to the stew simmering gently inside after leaving it to cook for much of the day.

The dish the workers prepared for themselves while firing the terracotta tiles was what Florentines today refer to as peposo alla fornacina. Made by cooking diced beef in red wine and aromatised with a generous amount of peppercorns, Brunelleschi, according to local legend, is said to have fallen in love with the dish on his visits to Impruneta.

These days, you’ll find many variations on this recipe for peposo which include herbs, diced root vegetables and tomato passata or puree. Purists, however, are quick to point out that the Americas (and, thus the tomato) had yet to be discovered in Brunelleschi’s time. And, after trying the Tuscan-based food writers Emiko Davies’ and Giulia Scarpaleggia’s essential, pared-down interpretations (the recipe below is based on elements from their respective ones) of this dish, it’s hard to disagree with them. Made with just six ingredients – marbled beef, olive oil, wine, garlic, salt, pepper – it is one of the tenderest and heartwarming beef stews I’ve ever tasted.

A few notes on making and serving this stew. The pepper, although it sounds like a unusually large amount, is mellowed by the long simmer in the red wine. Don’t care for biting into the ‘black gold’ that once sent the Roman coffers broke? Don’t worry, neither do I. The solution? Collect the throat-tingling peppercorns in a piece of cotton gauze and remove the sachet from your casserole once it’s time to serve. Ah yes, serving. Like many pot roasts and stews, you’ll probably find the flavours of your peposo are enhanced by several hours of rest after cooking. So, make this in advance, reheat it gently and you’ll be rewarded with an even more aromatic stew come dinnertime.

Ingredients
2 tbsp olive oil
1 kg braising or stewing beef, diced into 3-4 cm pieces
3 peeled garlic cloves
1 tbsp black pepper corns, roughly ground and collected in a small of piece of tightly woven cotton gauze
salt to taste
bread to serve

Preparation
Heat olive oil in a heavy-bottomed casserole or stockpot. Brown the diced meat ion medium heat. When the meat is browned all over, add the peeled garlic cloves, peppercorn sachet and red wine. Bring to boil, then lower heat to a gentler simmer. Cook covered for 2 hours. Remove lid, add salt and cook on low-medium heat for another 45 minutes to 1 hour, to reduce cooking liquid. Taste, and add more salt if necessary.

Remove sachet and serve with plenty of unsalted Tuscan bread to mop up the wine and pepper-infused sauce. Buon appetito!

This is one of the best wines on earth in this price range. Stand it up for a good day or two before you drink it as there will be little crystal bits of tannin and acid in the bottom. Be sure to get it into the glass is two hours before you drink it. It will need that much time to open up.

Here’s another great recipe from the James Beard award winning, Gabriel Rucker. This one I pulled from his cookbook Le Pigeon: Cooking at the Dirty Bird.

As we’ve already had carrots, fennel, and a lot of vegetables you can blow them off from this dish.

Carrot Butter-poached Halibut, Anchovy-roasted Carrots, Fennel

One of our first (and most successful) fish items was halibut poached in carrot butter. We really wanted to include that recipe in this book, but we couldn’t remember what we originally served it with. So we experimented, and fennel came up the winner. After all of our experimentation, we decided we loved this new recipe so much that we ran it on the menu for a week and it has become a new staple. (SERVES 4)

2 pounds (900 g) small carrots, with tops
3½ cups (875 g) unsalted butter
3 anchovy fillets, minced

3 lemons Kosher salt 2 cups (500 ml)
fresh carrot juice 3 cloves garlic, crushed, plus 1 whole clove garlic
1 bay leaf
Zest of 1 orange
¼ cup (60 ml) extra-virgin olive oil
4 halibut fillets, each about 6 ounces (185 g)
Maldon flake salt

Fennel Salad
1 fennel bulb, sliced ⅛ inch (3 mm) thick using a mandoline
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons chopped chives
1 tablespoon chopped white anchovies (boquerones)
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).

2. Remove the carrot tops, wash, and set aside. Peel the carrots and halve them lengthwise. In a sauté pan over medium heat, melt ½ cup (125 g) of the butter with the anchovies and the grated zest from two of the lemons. Add the carrots and season with kosher salt. Transfer to a baking sheet, spread in a single layer, and roast in the oven until slightly softened but still a little crunchy, about 12 minutes. Remove from oven and toss with the juice of one lemon.

3. In a shallow sauté pan over medium heat, combine the carrot juice, the crushed garlic, bay leaf, and orange zest. Cook until reduced by three-quarters, about 10 minutes. Add the remaining 3 cups (750 g) butter and stir until melted, then reduce the heat to very low and keep warm.

4. Next we’re going to buzz our carrot top pesto. Simply combine the carrot tops, the whole clove garlic, the olive oil, the juice of one lemon, and a pinch of kosher salt in a blender and blend until you have a fine pesto consistency. Set aside.

5. To make the fennel salad, in a bowl combine the fennel, olive oil, chives, and anchovies and season to taste with salt and pepper. Set aside.

6. Now, to poach the fish. Heat the carrot butter to 130°F (55°C) over low heat. Season the halibut with kosher salt and add the fish to the butter. Keeping the butter at 130°F (55°C), poach the halibut until you can press down on the fish with a fork and don’t feel a pop (that pop is connective tissue that hasn’t yet broken down), about 10 minutes. Using a slotted spatula, transfer the halibut to a plate lined with paper towels. Squeeze the juice of the third lemon over the fish and sprinkle with Maldon salt.

7. To serve, place roasted carrots in the center of four shallow bowls and top each with a halibut fillet. Top each halibut fillet with the fennel salad. Drizzle the pesto around the fish, spoon a tablespoon of carrot butter over each plate, and serve.

Wine pairing. 2017 R. Dubois & Fils Hautes-Cote De Nuit White Burgundy

From Pasta Social club

I used to have this every time I was in Barolo. I have never had it anywhere else and I couldn’t figure out how you can cook pasta with an egg yolk inside without cooking the egg yolk. These guys seem to have it figured out but if the yolk does get cooked when you try it go ahead and separate the egg yolk before it goes in the pasta and freeze it. Thus it will get hot but not cook while the pasta gets a nice soft maybe a little bit beyond al dente texture

21/4 cups all purpose flour
3 whole eggs
7 egg yolks, divided
1 bunch asparagus, sliced into 1/2 inch pieces on the diagonal
8 ounces whole milk ricotta
1/4 cup finely grated Parmigiano Reggiano
1 large lemon
5 tablespoons salted butter
Kosher salt
cracked black pepper

Step 1

Gradually combine flour with the whole eggs and one yolk to form the fresh pasta dough–this can be done manually using the “well” method, in a stand mixer with a dough hook, or in a food processor. Once the dough begins to come together and all of the egg is coated in flour, knead for about 10 minutes until very smooth and firm, then form into a ball and set aside to rest for 30 minutes to an hour, tightly wrapped. If the dough feels too dry, add very small increments of water with your fingertips to achieve the desired consistency (it should not be sticky or flaky).

Step 2

For the filling, bring lightly salted water to a boil in a medium pot. Blanch the asparagus until bright green and al dente, about 30 seconds to 1 minute. Immediately drain and run under cold water, or shock in an ice bath to stop the cooking. Reserve ½ cup of asparagus for garnish, and coarsely blend the remaining 1½ cups with the ricotta, Parmesan, a squeeze of lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste. Transfer the filling into a piping bag (optional; you can leave it in a bowl) and let it set up in the refrigerator for at least 15 minutes.

Step 3

Roll about a quarter of the pasta dough to one setting thicker than usual for filled pasta to prevent leakage (this was setting 5 on my Marcato hand-crank machine; also note this will increase cooking time). Lightly flour the bottom of the sheet and cut it in half.

Step 4

Using a 3½-inch cookie cutter, lightly mark the area for the raviolo at the end of one half of the sheet. Pipe or spoon a nest of filling in a circle about ½ inch inside the cookie cutter outline.

Step 5

Very carefully transfer the egg yolk to the center of the filling nest. Repeat this process with the remaining area of the pasta sheet (it’s okay if there’s only space for a couple of ravioli, they’re big!).

Step 6

Brush a small amount of water around the circumference of the ravioli. Carefully lay the other half of the pasta sheet on top and press gently around each to seal. Go back through with the cookie cutter and cut out the ravioli, pinching the edges together to seal firmly, if needed. Gently transfer each raviolo to a lightly floured surface and repeat with the remaining dough and filling. Note: Ravioli all’uovo are incredibly decadent and one or two per person is usually plenty. I used some of my remaining dough and filling to make regular ravioli so nothing went to waste.

Step 7

To finish the dish, bring a medium pot of well-salted water to a gentle boil. Cut the remaining asparagus pieces in half to create thin diamonds, then melt a few tablespoons of salted butter in a saute pan over low heat. Once the water is boiling, very carefully (using a slotted spoon may help) lower ravioli into the water and cook 2-3 minutes, until pasta feels pliable but not firm to the touch. Do not overcrowd the pot; you may need to cook them in two batches. While the ravioli cook, add the asparagus to the butter with a sprinkle of kosher salt, pepper, and a squeeze of lemon juice and stir gently to combine. Remove from heat. Transfer ravioli directly to a plate and top with lemon butter and asparagus. Serve immediately and break into that yolk!

Here’s a real interesting Italian white made by Cloistered nuns outside of Rome.

Welcome to Tafel Tuesday. Every week we are going to post, in order, a track from Tafelmuzik Means More… as individual elements of a three and a half plus hour dinner party. Each course will have a recipe and visuals to project or play on your giant screen TV if you want to go all the way surrealist dining at your outdoor Covid safe extravagant dinner event.

Frozen Grapes

It’s time to take a break. Stand up stretch your legs and as a small pallet cleanser I like to have some frozen grapes with a peppermint leaf for a nice clean aromatic effect. If you can find “cotton candy” grapes they are the best but here I’ve got some good right Thompson seedless. Grapes seem a lot sweeter once they are frozen.