How to Make Brodo di Manzo with Tortellini and Greens
Alright today, one of my favorites, brodo di manzo with tortellini and greens, this is simply a really rich beef broth or brodo that I finished with some cheese tortellini and some kale. At the end it is the perfect winter soup. Here we go.
We’re going to brown a beef shank and that’s about 2 ½ inch thick slice of beef shank very inexpensive, very easy to find at the butcher. So give that a good browning on medium high heat and some olive oil maybe five, six minutes on each side. Alright, take it out of the pot. Now turn your heat to medium and add one chop onion. Now some times this is going to simmer for four hours, you don’t have to get too crazy about the perfect size diced of onion. Just chop it up. I’ll put in another tablespoon of olive oil just so I had a little more oil to sauté this. I’m going to cook this for about six, seven minutes. I want to get a little browning going on there. Again don’t’ be afraid if the bottom of the pot starts to get nice and dark brown, that’s all you’re going to help that brodo. Okay it’s going to make even richer and deeper colored.
I put a little pinch of salt. Alright, so there we go. So six, seven minutes later, I’m going to add two, three tablespoons of tomato paste. Alright, this is again, I’m going to have a little bit of acidity to the stock. I’m going to caramelize that tomato paste onto the bottom of the kettle and again, just for a couple of minutes. I don’t want it to burn but dark brown is good. So I cook that for a few minutes. I’m going to add—before I add my stock here, three or four cloves of chopped garlic. Give that a stir and now we’re ready to get this thing ready for our four hours of simmering. Right again, don’t’ burn the garlic that will cause in our flavor. So we’re just going to stir that around a little bit and add a quart of high quality hopefully organic beef broth and one quart of plain water.
Now don’t add any additional seasoning or salt here. We are going to put in a few herbs but don’t add any salt at this point. Just put your beef shank back in there. You see me swirling it around I’m kind of robbing the bottom of the pot deglaze anything that stocked to the bottom. Now as far as herbs, I’m just going to go with the teaspoon of dried Italian herb that’s your classic basil, marjoram, thyme, rosemary, anything you like. A little pinch of red pepper flakes, so like to give it just a little bit of heat. And see those bubbles around the top of the screen there. As soon as it starts to come to a very gentle simmer, you’re going to put the lid on, and you are going to cook this for four hours. It takes a long time for that beef shank to break down. So this is not a dish if you’re in a hurry, right. But it’s totally worth it.
So you’re going to leave that for four hours, simmering on low then you’re going to check it. Now how do you know it’s done, very simple, all the meat base we fell off that bone, okay. So once that meat just totally disintegrates and collapses off that bone, and hey, if you’ve got to cook it a little longer, go ahead. But then you know you’re ready for the rest of the stuff.
Now this stays before we start adding the greens and the tortellini. I want to kind of de-fat the top here. I don’t even know if that’s a word but I just use it. So you’re going to take out a ladle. Now if you turn it up to like a medium simmer, the bubbles will force the fat into little pools and you could just simple skim that off. And if you’re careful and take your time in about five minutes, that’s gone. Now I’m adding three or four big handfuls of chopped kale, any green is going to work here. Alright, you can read about that on the site, colored greens, and mustard, Swiss chard, whatever you like. Now kale only takes about 10 to 15 minutes to get tender depending on the green you’re using. You might have to adjust that time.
At this point, I also tasted the stock for salt and pepper because before I add my tortellini I want to make sure the stock has enough salt. And I’m using one eight ounce package of this Barilla, three cheese tortellini, these are dried tortellini. Again, if you use tortellini that’s not going to take that long to cook. These and the package say that it takes between 10 and 12 minutes just from my experience. I’m going to set my timer for 11 minutes. Now what I’m going to do here is I’m going to actually turn this up to medium high and I’m going to put the lid on, and I’m going to set my timer for 11 minutes. And then I’m going to be just about ready to eat.
Alright, so I’m going to give you the timer visualization. There you go and start countdown. Perfect. Alright, 11 minutes later, oh man that looks good. Alright, you could turn that off, you can taste it one last time for seasoning. If you want to add a little more hot pepper, you see me add a few flakes later. This is just so rich and delicious. It’s hard to believe those few ingredients produce something this fabulous but that really is true. It is slow food as they call it. You’ve got to invest few hours making that broth. But it finishes pretty quick at the end. Find yourself a nice big soup bowl. Slice up a hunk of Italian bread. This is optional. I’m going to little Reggiano parmesan on top, I’m going to add a little pinch of pepper flake to kick it up a notch as my friend Emerald says, and there we go.
So that to me is a wonderful, wonderful winter soup, very, very healthy. That is very lean stock. You have incredibly flavorful. Cheese tortellini, okay, fine, that’s not maybe the most locale thing. But any pasta will work in this, any green will work, and again, this is going to chase these winter blues away, just comfort in a bowl. I hope you give that a try and enjoy.
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