Pasticada Stewed beef recipe!

 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

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.