Brasato ai funghi (Italian Pot Roast with Mushrooms)

Frank10 November 2018Fall, Lombardia, Piemonte, secondi piatti, Winter52 Comments

While I’m not a vegetarian, meat doesn’t play a very central role in my diet. Usually at least. There’s something about the late autumn and winter that brings out the inner carnivore. When the colder weather sets in, there’s nothing better than a good pot roast. We’ve featured brasato, the northern Italian style of pot roasting, before. But this version, brasato ai funghi, is made extra special by dried porcini mushrooms, which infuse it with their intensely woodsy flavor.

A brasato is not at all hard to make, although a proper one involves a quite few steps: marinating, larding, browning and braising. You can skip the first two if you’re in a hurry. But the pay off is well worth the effort. A well made brasato one of the most delicious, warming and comforting dishes imaginable, perfect for this time of year, especially served with mashed potatoes or polenta.

Ingredients

Serves 4-6

750g-1 kilo (1-1/2 to 2 lbs) beef, from a cut suitable for pot roasting (see Notes)

For the marinade (optional):

Red wine
1-2 shallot, cut into halves
A small carrot, cut into slices
1 small stalk of celery, cut into slices
A bay leaf
1-2 cloves

For larding the roast (optional):

50 g (2 oz) pancetta, cut into small dice

For browning the roast:

1 small onion, finely minced
1 small carrot finely minced
1 small stalk celery, finely minced
Red wine (or the marinade)

For braising the roast:

[2 cups] beef broth (or water)
15g (1/2 oz) dried porcini mushrooms, soaked until soft in warm water
1-2 cloves (if not used in the marinade)
A bay leaf (if not used in the marinade)
Salt and pepper
Butter and vegetable oil

For the mushroom garnish:

250g (8oz) fresh mushrooms, cut into slices or quarters (see Notes)
1-2 shallots, finely minced
A sprig of parsley
Butter and vegetable oil
Salt and pepper

Directions

Marinating the Roast

If marinading your roast, place it in a bowl or container with the marinade ingredients and enough red wine to just cover. Leave overnight (and up to 24 hours) in the fridge. Turn the roast over once or twice as it marinates. Take the beef out of the fridge about an hour before you want to cook so it returns to room temperature. Pat dry.

Larding the Roast

If using a lean cut like eye round, it’s not a bad idea to lard the roast. Here’s an easy, ‘homestyle’ way to do it: Make slits all over the roast with a small parting knife and, with your fingers, insert small bits of pancetta into the slits. (See Notes for the professional method.)

Browning the Roast

Make a battuto by finely mincing the onion, carrot and celery together, either with a sharp knife or mezzaluna on a cutting board, or in a food processor, until the mixture has almost turned into a paste.

Melt a good knob of butter, along with a drizzle of vegetable oil, in a Dutch oven large enough to hold the roast, then add the battuto and gently sweat all the ingredients, with a pinch of salt, until they are very soft. Take care not to brown the aromatic vegetables—a few drops of water will help them prevent browning and help soften them as well.

Raise the heat and add the roast, browning it on all sides, again taking care not to burn the aromatics. Pour a ladleful of red wine (or the strained marinade if you’ve done that) over the roast and let it simmer, turning the roast now and then.

Braising the Roast

When the wine is almost evaporated, add the broth or water, along with the soaked mushrooms. (If you’re not making the mushroom garnish, you can add some or all of the soaking liquid, strained of any grit, as well.) Cover and let the roast braise over low heat until tender. (Times can vary, but 2-3 hours should be enough, although some recipes call for 4-6 hours of braising.) Adjust the heat so that the braising liquid simmers gently. Add more liquid (broth, water or mushroom water) if things get too dry.

Making the mushroom garnish

While the roast is braising, cut the fresh mushrooms into slices or quarters. Sauté them briskly in a good knob of butter and a drizzle of vegetable oil. They will exude their juices at first, once they have evaporated, you will hear them begin to sizzle. At that point, they will begin to brown. If you are using rather bland mushrooms, you can add some or all of the soaking liquid from the dried porcini to the mushrooms, just as they begin to sizzle, and let it evaporate.

Making the Sauce

When the beef is tender, remove it from the pot and let it rest for a few minutes. Meanwhile, check the braising liquid, which you will use as your sauce. It should be dark and intensely flavored, abundant but not too thin. Boil it down if it’s too thin, and add water if need be to thin it out. The battuto should have completely melted into the sauce; if not, you can purée the sauce with a hand blender. If you’re using the mushroom garnish, you can add it to the sauce if you like and let it simmer for a few minutes.

Serving the Roast

Slice the roast on a serving platter and add the mushroom garnish all around it. Nap with some of the sauce. Place the rest of the sauce in a sauce boat for those who want more. Brasato is wonderful accompanied by mashed potatoes or soft polenta.

Notes on Brasato di manzo ai funghi

A brasato is not at all difficult to make although as we’ve seen, it does involve quite a few steps. You can simplify things by skipping the initial marinating and larding, of course, and skipping the garnish if you like.

And you can speed things up considerably if you use a pressure cooker for the braising: 40 minutes at high pressure, followed by a natural release, which might take say 10-15 minutes, will get the job done. Use less liquid—about half the amount called for in the recipe—and you should be good to go. You may need to reduce the sauce a bit, as pressure cooking virtually eliminates evaporation. Or you could thicken the sauce with a bit of corn or potato starch. This quick method should mean your brasato can be finished in a bit over an hour.

Otherwise, a few tips to bear in mind:

Best cuts for brasato

What you want for a good brasato—or any pot roast—is one of the tougher cuts of meat with plenty of fat and connective tissue that will break down during the long, slow braising process, enriching the meat as it cooks. These generally correspond to cuts from the neck, shoulder or rear of the cow. Comparing cuts of meat across cuisines is a confusing business, but many Italian recipes for brasato call for scamone (rump roast), tenerone (a cut from the neck) or capello di prete or priest’s hat (roughly corresponding to part of what we call the chuck).

As I’ve noted before, I particularly like chuck for pot roasting. Although it does not produce a very pretty roast, with its ample marbling, chuck stays moist and juicy without larding. Among the other cuts commonly used for pot roasting here in the US, the bottom round is another good cut. And for today’s post, I used the eye round which makes a neat presentation when sliced. It is fairly lean so benefits from marinating and larding. Personally, I find the top and center round too lean for pot roasting, but again, marinating and larding helps them stay moist.

Speaking of larding, the technique here is pretty basic, aimed at the home cook without fancy skills or special equipment. But if you want to attempt a more professional larding job, check out our past on stracotto all fiorentina, where you lard pancetta and carrot the whole length of the roast with a larding needle.

Choosing mushrooms for the garnish

As for the mushrooms, porcini would be the classic choice in Italy, of course. Where I live I can’t find fresh porcini for love or money, so I turn to other varieties like Baby Bellas and use the soaking liquid from the dried porcini to infuse them with their musky flavor. (An old trick I learned years ago, so long ago in fact that I can’t remember where, but it does work. ) But otherwise just about any varietal of mushroom that you like and can find would do quite fine.

Making Brasato Ahead

If time allows, the brasato will be even better served the next day. Let it rest in its braising liquid, then gently reheat it when you’re ready to eat. Meanwhile, prepare the mushroom garnish and proceed with the last two steps in the recipe.

Another particularly tasty (if not very photogenic) way to make the dish ahead, or to enjoy leftover sliced brasato: Lay slices of the meat on a baking dish, cover the slice with the mushroom garnish, then cover it all with the sauce. Place the baking dish in a hot oven (200C/400F) for 10-15 minutes, until the meat is heated through and the sauce simmering. Serve right away.

Variations

The mushroom garnish is optional. You can simply use the dried porcini, adding their soaking liquid to the pot, and you’ll get a lovely mushroom flavor. And if you’re lucky enough to have fresh porcini on hand, you can do without the dried. Just add sliced porcini to the pot say about 30 minutes before you’re done.

The same technique can be also used to make a plain brasato. Just omit the dried porcini and, of course, the mushroom garnish. Add some sautéed or braised baby onions—or sliced yellow onions— towards the end instead of the mushroom garnish and you’ll have a very nice brasato con le cipolle.

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