My first thought when I went to look at my recipe this week was, hurry, hurry and google what braciole means. I was convinced that I had somehow skipped ahead to the variety meats section, but no it only means a large steak cut from the center of the top or bottom round. It can also be a large flank steak. I was able to breathe a sigh of relief.
The only cut that the store had that was big enough for this dish was a flank steak so that is what I used. Marcella recommends that you sew the steak up to make a pouch in the center that you can stuff, but I didn’t have a sewing needle that was large enough for this purpose, so as an alternative she said that you could roll it up jellyroll style. Since that worked well for me a couple of weeks ago, I tried it again.

This dish is the steak stuffed with ground pork mixed with garlic, parsley, egg and parmesan cheese. I rolled it, covered it with flour, and then browned it on all sides in butter and oil. Once it was brown, I cooked it over a low heat for a couple of hours in white wine. The house smelled incredible while it was cooking. Zach kept asking when it would be done. He didn’t want to wait, but I knew that we had to be patient. Once the time was up, I removed the meat from the pan and then cooked down the pan drippings. They were very chunky, so after they thickened a bit, I poured them through a strainer to make the sauce smooth.

This tasted as great as it smelled. Zach, who is not one to experiment with food, loved it. Michael came home just in time to eat and he loved it too. I was feeling so happy with this dish until I went to our website and saw Palma’s post from yesterday. I can’t wait to make my next braciole that way too! So many recipes that I need to try!