Beef Roast Braised with Onions
The past two days you’ve read about two wonderful-sounding beef roast recipes from Marcella. The first was cooked in Red Wine (Deborah used a Barolo) and yesterday Doug used an Amorone. Beef and red wine make such a great pairing. I have another Beef Roast recipe for you to try. And it’s one that is so simple, and only has 4 ingredients (not counting the salt and pepper). No wine involved (except for you to drink along with the beef). It’s Beef Roast Braised with Onions. This recipe calls for cooking a beef roast, preferably a brisket. The store I was in at the time didn’t have brisket, but they did have chuck roast, so that’s what I used. The other ingredients are pancetta, cloves, and ontions. Doesn’t this sound easy?
Okay, there does have to be a catch. The recipe calls for cutting the pancetta into narrow strips and either using a larding needle to lard the meat, or using a chopstick to push the pancetta into the roast. I don’t have a larding needle, and I hate to admit it, but I don’t think I’ve seen one and I don’t plan on buying one.So I used a very sturdy chopstick, which I pushed into the roast to create a hole, then I used again to push the pancetta into that hole. It seemed like a lot of work. It probably didn’t take much time, but I was busy and behind in work I needed to get done the day I made this, so it seemed like it took a long time. Once that was done, it was a breeze. Stud the roast with the cloves (okay, Marcella, I have a really BIG confession to make-I forgot the cloves!), thinly slice onions, and then place the onions in the bottom of a heavy pot. I used a new enameled cast-iron pot I just bought at Costco that I was anxious to try. (by the way, I love it, and it only cost $50). Back to the recipe. What makes this recipe unique is that there is no liquid added to the pot. The roast is just braised with the juices that come out of the onions. And my onions were very juicy, so there was quite a bit of liquid.
Again, back to the recipe. Place the roast on top of the sliced onions, scatter a little of the sliced pancetta on top of the onions, and place your roast on top. Tightly cover, and cook for about 3 1/2 hours.
The onions turn a dark carmelized brown, and the meat absorbs that wonderful caramelly, onion flavor. When my husband tasted it, he exclaimed that it was one of the best meat dishes he has ever had! It was so tender, and as I just mentioned, really absorbed the onion flavor. But not a harsh onion flavor, but instead, that softened flavor that only comes from really slow cooking. I’m sure if I had remembered the clove, it might have even tasted better than it did.
This will get added to my recipe file of one of the easiest but most flavorful roasts to cook. And the next evening, I shredded the leftovers, added a little beef broth to make more of a gravy, and served it over polenta. Another great dish that had us almost licking the plate.
Now we’re talkin’!!! This looks amazing!(although I’m not aware of what a larding needle even looks like or that they existed on the planet). Carmalized onions….one of my favorites!! I bought my sister a new castiron pot for Christmas, I’ll encourage her to make this! :))
Great post as usual!!
Cindy, this looks and sounds wonderful. I especially appreciate your description of those lovely onions!
Cindy, I’ve had recipes (mostly for chicken and turkey that called for this technique. I also don’t own a larding needle, so I use the stainless steel BBQ skewers that came with my gas grill.
It looks wonderful, Cindy, and I am sure it tastes even better!
Isn’t it curious that in most old Italian kitchens you’d expect to find a larding needle, but would be surprised to find chopsticks.
The original purpose of larding needles was to insert lard into pieces of meat that were short of essential fat, as were nearly all the less expensive cuts of meat in those distant days. But even if you are not studding a roast with lard – not such a bad idea really – a larding needle is a very neat way to enrich the flavor and moistness of meat with cut up vegetables. I bought my needle decades ago in a New York store paying no more than a dollar or two, and my dears I have sure got a lot of use out of it! I continue to see them in such stores as Sur La Table and Williams-Sonoma, so there must be some other cooks who are wise to them.
What you described above sounds absolutely luscious, but there was no reference to time, temperature, etc.
We made a brisket in the oven yesterday. Can you say fiasco?! Can you say paper-weight?
Followed a recipe from a trusted long-time cook with a television show.
It wasn’t good. Please advise.
Deborah responds:
Sadrine, the reason you don’t see any specifics in this blog is that we intentionally decided only to blog about our experience making the dishes along with plenty of pictures. Our goal was to serve as a compliment to the actual cookbook, We felt that if we reproduced the recipes word-for-word, we would be undermining the authors income by eliminating a reason for someone to go out a buy the cookbook.