How to Make Braciole
Today we’re going to make braciole. This is a little bit longer of a recipe but I consider it the best family dinner ever. Hi I’m Caitlin and this is CookingwithCaitlin. Today we’re at Club Pike Market picking out our meats for the braciole. A few tips are, spend a little extra money on it. You can always buy the pre-sliced stuff, it’s always good but if you want a perfect Genoa salami, I would recommend coming to a specialty market just like this. Let’s get cooking.
Today I’m going to teach you how to make a family classic braciole or braciole, however your feeling pronounces it, it’s delicious. For this recipe, the most important thing are the meats that you choose to put within your flank steak. For this one I chose to do sopressata because it’s got large peppercorns, pepperoni because there’s a little bit of heat and prosciutto then when I say prosciutto for its saltiness that will add to the entire dish.
The cheese I chose was a provolone because it’s amazingly mild and that will just make a perfect gooeyness throughout the braciole. For the flank steak, I chose it based on its size, I picked about one and a half pound flank steak and then some marinara sauce. If you have a secret family recipe, that is completely perfect to use. When you lay out your flank steak you want to make sure that it is going this way. It is commonly referred to as “the grain” which is the muscle direction. So make sure that the muscles are going up and down. When you’re layering the meats, you can do it in any order you like but just have them overlapped, just a little bit, got it all at the same place.
Next I like to add the cheese just to make sure that all the meat, it’s a little gooey, mellow flavor, happens throughout. Next the spicy pepperoni. The great thing is now on most grocery stores carry all the pre-sliced so it’s not that hard to find. But if you can’t find sopressata, you can always substitute just common salami or bologna, whatever you like the best. Next the prosciutto, shingled it on. It doesn’t have to be attractive. It will just taste good. Perfect!
Now you want to pick the meat up and put it in the opposite direction. I’m going to grab the meat from underneath falling on to all the meat that’s on top and begin to pull it towards you and roll it. While you are doing that, you are on top of the meat inside, so that it’s one giant roll.
Now it’s time to try this thing. The butcher’s twine is something that you can ask your butcher for if you don’t have a home already, they should give it to you for free, no problem. First you’re going to slide the rope underneath the thing and do a double knot as tight as you can. There you go.
Next, you go around and make a four with the rope like that, fold it in place and whirl underneath and carry it around and then do -- I don’t know if you saw that. Take this and just tuck it under. There you go and pull through. There you go. Pull this side to make it tight. You want to make sure that everything holds together and continue to do that throughout the entire braciole. Grab your scissors and cut the excess off on both ends. There you go.
Now that the braciole is completely finish being rolled, you’re going to grab your olive oil. Preheat your pan to about a medium high heat and drizzle in a little olive oil, not enough to cope but about a tablespoon or two. You just want to sear the meat on all sides before you throw the sauce in. You want to make sure you have a hot pan, you just want to make sure you got a good sear on the meat. To sear just means to make it -- the outside of meat crispy so that you get that little bit of crunch in it to use in all of the --
Once all the sides are seared, you want to throw in your tomato sauce. After you put the sauce on, lower the heat to about medium low just so it can simmer for about 30 minutes and then the meat will be completely cooked. Here we go, after your 30 minutes are up, that is what it’s going to look like. The sauce will have fat laced to it and it will have meat bits all through it, very good. The next step is you have to cut the string off. You don’t want to eat that. Pull the string off and cut and spread it. This is the perfect main course at any pasta dish, braciole.
Thank you for tuning in to CookingwithCaitlin.com. If you want, you can learn more of my family secrets just by looking at our website.
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