How to Make Beef Braciole Italian Stuffed Rolled Steak
Hello, this is Chef John from foodwishes.com and today an old, Italian favorite, Braciole.
This is stuffed and rolled beef that’s cook and braised in a little bit of tomato sauce and
it’s not that hard. And in fact, it’s a great way to use old meat. That’s right, $2.00 off. I'm
sure it’s still good. I'm going to take a chance.
Now a lot of times people use tougher cuts of meat like top round, roast beef that kind of
stuff, rump roast. But this top sirloin was on sale as you can see. So what you're going to
do here is you're going to pound this thin to about a quarter inch. I'm going to use this
piece of plastic and that top piece, okay, that was kind of on the top there. I'm going to
use that to patch that spot right there where all the muscles come together because that’s
kind of a thin spot. And I'm just going to give that a little tap so it’s all nice and even
because when I roll this, this all going to be in one piece anyway. Okay, so that’s a little
tip.
Now for the stuffing, we have just regular plain bread crumbs that are about a half of cup.
I'm going to do two cloves of garlic crushed, some nice olive oil about a tablespoon or
two. I'm going to put in -- I don’t know a three or four tablespoons of chopped raisins. I
don’t like them whole. I like them kind of smaller pieces and about a quarter cup, a third
of a cup of shredded parmesan, a nice doze of black pepper and a small pinch of salt
because the cheese is a little salty.
Now my uncle Bill makes this and he puts pine nuts and other things, pancetta, different
herbs and things. So this is a very basic one. I didn’t have pine nuts, so I didn’t use them.
But I did have some beautiful fresh oregano from the garden and usually I always get an
egg in there, you know, bind everything together. So the cheese and the egg really hold
this together. And that’s basically just a really flavorful kind of sweet and savory and
cheesy bread stuff in.
So there's our pounded out top sirloin about a quarter inch thick. Make sure you salt and
pepper very well before you stuff it. I'm going to put half the filling in there. I have two
of these. I know I left the top third of the beef empty, all right, or unfilled. So I'm going
to press that stuffing in and I'm just going to roll it up nice and tight. All right, in the end
because I left it without stuffing is going to help that kind of seal together when it cooks.
Otherwise, you're going to stuffing kind of falling out, okay.
Now you don’t need to do any fancy butcher knots. Okay, just take a piece of string and
tie it around in a double knot and do that in three or four spots and that would hold it
together. You don’t need to do the fancy tie. Well, I do because I have a reputation
uphold, so I did the fancy butcher dressing. All right, now what we’re going to do here is
we’re going to sauté those in some olive oil on medium high heat, get a nice brown on
them. Get something to deglaze. As you can see on the bottom there, I got some nice
brown action. I'm going to throw in some water there, a cup. And that water is going to
deglaze the bottom and get off all those beautiful brown bits, a lot of flavor there.
Now if you're using the tough beef, the rump roast, the top brown that needs to cook a
long time, you would actually cover this in sauce and braise it very slowly for like an
hour, so that the meat tenderize. But here, we’re going to use a little different method. So
let's season this. I'm going to give it a little bit of red pepper flakes and bay leaf and I'm
going to throw in half of jar of tomato sauce. All right, and what I'm doing there is I'm
rubbing the bottom to deglaze it. Okay, so now the liquid is about halfway up the
Braciole. I'm going to bring this up to a simmer. All right, we’re going to cook it very
slowly. We need low heat.
You see that just barely simmering. I'm going to put the lid on and I'm going to cook it
for 10 minutes on one side and I'm going to just roll them over and do 10 minutes on the
other. So it’s going to take about 20 minutes. It’s not going to be medium rare. It’s going
to be cook through, but its not going to be overcooked. It’s not going to be dry. You want
an internal temperature of about 140. And because it’s cooking in a wet environment, we
don’t really have to about drying out. We want to cook it up to that temperature so the
stuffing really cooks and infuses the beef with all that nice flavor.
So I'm going to take those out after 20 minutes and let them rest for about 10 minutes.
And I'm going to reduce the sauce a little bit to thicken it up. All right now, the good part.
We’re going to slice these. They’ve rested. So they're going to slice very nicely. They're
not going to fall apart. And there you go. See, it’s still a little bit pink but the stuffing is
cooked and the raisins have given up there sweetness and the cheese is kind of infused its
flavor into the meat. And the service could not be easier. You slice it, a little bit tomato
sauce on and under. I had a little walnut pasta. You may have seen that in another demo.
So usually recipes are either rustic or there are kind of fancy. This is both, so make some
Braciole. Its fun to say Braciole and I made it through the whole demo without doing—
that’s how I roll. Anyway, that’s how I Braciole. Go to the site. Get the ingredients and
more info. And as always, enjoy.
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