Braciole

Watching an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond, they were all eating and raving over a dish called Braciole


What's this?
I dunno. Something called Braciole the props dept gave me

Intrigued, I looked it up. It's an Italian special feast dish: thin slices of braising steak filled with all sorts of scrummy things, rolled up, cooked slowly in a rich tomato sauce, sliced and served with the sauce.

Love a challenge, me. So here it is, as made |Satterday for four of us. Took me six bastard hours.

First, brown off some pork bones


and add them to a tomato sauce made with red wine, garlic, passata, herbs

Mmmmm bones in tomato sauce

this cooked for three hours. Meanwhile, I flattened some slices of skirt steak. Skirt is great as it has no gristle and no fat, but plenty of flavour. It does, however, need a good two hours cooking

Hello, I'm skirt. I am available at all good butchers

Oww!! Now I'm flat. About quarter of an inch thick

Now the filling. First I whizzed up plenty of parsley and basil


with garlic


and spread it over the steak


followed by breadcrumbs and freshly grated parmesan

I do hope you are impressed. It is extremely difficult holding a phone and grating a lump of parmesan at the same time


Then I went a bit out on a limb and scattered on raisins soaked in masala, and some dried porcini, and rolled it all up

Tied it with little bands which I nicked from the butcher

and fried them off in olive oil


before putting them in the tomato sauce and cooking for another two hours



Meanwhile I made some garlic & rosemary potatoes with goose fat

There is literally nothing on this planet that does not improve with a good dollop of goose fat

Ok, you got me there, but ALMOST literally nothing.

Before



After


Finally sliced the beef rolls



put the slices into a large dish, covered with the tomato sauce, sprinkled with fresh basil and more parmesan, and finished off in the oven

I'm done


The completed article

It was stonkingly delicious