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Pasticada
recipe:
 4 meals, 1+4 hours cooking time
750 g of beef thigh
100 g of dry bacon
wine vinegar
450 g of onion
½ glass of
prosecco (sweet wine) or (sherry)
1 prune
nutmeg bread crumbs
5 cloves (spice)
5 cloves of garlic
oil
bouillon or hot water
tomato concentrate
ground pepper
Equally disposed holes up to 2 cm deep are cut into
the meat block with the pointed knife, into which cloves, longish sliced pieces
of garlic and bacon are pushed. That way prepared meat is completely soaked
over the night into the vinegar. In the following procedure this vinegar is no
longer used (can be used for another Pasticada, though).
Half finger of oil is poured in the pot, and meat is
roasted on it slowly from all sides. If the meat stays without the juice and
starts catching to the bottom of the pot, a small quantity of bouillon or hot
water is added and roasting is continued. When the meat catches brown colour
from all sides, it is taken out, and in the same pot minced onion is roasted.
Then prune, a bit of grated nutmeg, pepper, salt and prosecco, in which a big
spoon of tomato concentrate was dissolved, are added. When the sauce is boiled,
meat and a sufficient quantity of bouillon or hot water to cover the meat with
the sauce are added.
The size of the pot must be as close to the size of the
meat block as possible in order not to add too much liquid and to keep sauce as
dense as possible. Meat is then cooked on light flame for about 2-3 hours, until
it is almost completely cooked. The meat is taken out and the sauce is run
through a strainer. After the meat is cut into 1 cm thick slices, it is returned
back in the sauce. Altogether is then cooked for about 1/2 hour, until the meat
becomes very soft.
Pasticada is
served with gnocchi or wide noodles and Parmesan cheese.
Pasticada tricks: In order to save vinegar, a block of
meat can be soaked only to the half, but then it has to be occasionally turned
around. Instead of prosecco (sweet wine),
half glass of black wine in which 2 small spoons of sugar are dissolved into
can be used. The sauce has to be dense and dark brown. If it is not dense and
dark enough, fine sieved bread crumbs are separately roasted on the oil until
they grow dark brown. A large spoon of tomato concentrate is added, altogether
is a bit further roasted and added to the sauce at least 1/2 hour before the
end.
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