Peposo & Dario Cecchini

It has taken me 6 months of sulking and kicking around to research this recipe.  I ate it in Tuscany where it was cooked for Noni and I by the famous butcher Dario Cecchini. Dario is a fierce, single minded protector of Tuscan traditions. His butcher shop and restaurant are a bastion of how food should be cooked. The lunch he made us was 8 courses of the best meat dishes I have ever eaten – around a large communal table of strangers – two doctors from Pisa, a composer and his wife and a family from nearby village. I will never forget the meal and while sleeping the wine off under a tree I made a promise to learn all of the dishes and cook them for myself. One of those dishes was Peposo.

Peposo is an umido, or stew. Actually, it is more than a stew, it is a rich, concentrated expression of beef of which there are too many versions. You serve it on toasted crusty bread with a glass of the same wine you cooked with. In its purest form it is simply seasoned meat and garlic cooked slowly in red wine. No oil, herbs, vegetables.

Antica Macelleria Cecchini

Voltaire once said – better is the enemy of good.

Two things nearly made me choke today. Whilst eating my potato rosti for breakfast, on TV a Michelin starred chef described out loud how to cook a “perfect” beef ragu by using worcester sauce, tomato ketchup, he even added that a cheese sauce is nice in lasagna.

Whilst quietly contemplating his utter ignorance, and close to drafting a letter to Michelin, I checked out Corriere della Sera the recipe for Peposo.  They awfully, wrongly, disgracefully suggest using lean beef, a splash of wine, a few pepper corns and to cook it for two hours. I am warning you all now to steer clear of this wretched Milanese rag.

If Peposo was this easy why did I bother to get up at 9am on a sunday to smash peppercorns in my pestle and mortar only to be disturbed by girlfriend moaning about a migraine. Why have I mashed a whole head of garlic and tipped a bottle and a half of a very decent Chianti into my 2kgs of beef shin meat? Why is it now wrapped up tight, cooking slowly for 10-12 hours in a very slow oven?

Why do we want to make things better and by doing so, turn it into something else? If you do – just stop calling it something which it is not.

To further understand this injustice here are the words of Dario, the legendary, eccentric butcher from Panazano.

“The story goes that maestro Filippo Brunelleschi, completely absorbed by the building of the wonderful dome of Santa Maria del Fiore (Florence’s Cathedral), thought up a diet to give his craftsmen and labourers the energy needed to carry out their supreme task with vigour and passion.

“What is important is this fabulous beef stew that cooks slowly through the night, steeped in black pepper, garlic, sea salt, red wine, and nothing else but the magic of a hot oven. It is the very essence of Tuscan cooking: intensely flavoured, delicious, energizing, and perfect served with lots of good red wine. Meat and wine; life and life.

“May God bless you maestro Brunelleschi for having given us this fantastic dish and allowing us to dream the Tuscan dream of earthly joy with your Peposo and the breath-taking vista of your dome.

“Tuscany will always remember you as her hero, and I will know contentment every time I eat your stew. And I will think that perhaps you are looking down upon us with a haughty Tuscan smile that says, “I did it, and who could do it better?”

This is who we Tuscans are.”

You think I am compulsive about food?

Next time your are in Tuscany – go and eat with Dario… http://www.dariocecchini.com/solo_ciccia_eng.html

The recipe is simple…

2kg of beef shin meat, cubed (shin is essential as it will cook into a softer texture)

2 teaspoons of salt

3-4 tablespoons of crushed black pepper

8 cups of wine (1.5 bottles-ish)

1 head of finely chopped/ mashed garlic

Sling it all in a big pot, bring to the boil and stick it into an oven at 120 degrees C for 10 hours or until the meat has broken down and the sauce has reduced down into the meat. Serve with any kind of good toasted bread and the rest of that wine. It can also be served with any kind of baked or boiled potato, as a sauce for pasta, a filling for ravioli – and so on.

Ragù di anatra

Otherwise known as Duck Ragu. Duck legs are cheap. We are talking £1.25 for a leg. This is a blessing. There are two things in life which are bogglingly cheap and make my life better – they are duck legs and cans of Carlsberg.

Whilst my Carlsberg supply is as reliable as oxygen, duck supply can be poor at the best of times. I found 8 legs the other day in a Tesco metro and bought them all. I froze 5, roasted three for a duck salad, and we had one left. Tonight I used it making ragù di anatra – a duck meat ragu.

Duck makes a good change from beef and pork. Serves two with plenty of sauce for mopping up with bread… you could easily stretch this to four, but I am clearly a gut bucket.

First roast your single duck leg. 180 degrees for an hour. You should cook a batch of duck legs and just keep them in the fridge. You can make duck shepherds pie, duck spring rolls, duck salads (soy and honey dressing), confit, rillettes. It’s endless. The rendered fat you can freeze or store in the fridge for roasting potatoes.

Once the duck leg is roasted, rest for ten minutes then strip the meat from the bone and tear into small chunks. Take the bones and skin, crack the bones a couple of times with a knife and then simmer slowly in a small pan with about 3/4 of a pint of water with a couple of bay leaves.

While the stock is simmering, cook your soffritto. Half a large onion, celery stick and a medium carrot – finely diced and fried in a good couple of glugs of olive oil. Cook over a low heat for 10-15 minutes. As a guide to when it is done, it smells sweet and is stickier but not caremelised.

Add a glass of red wine, and reduce over a high heat for two minutes, then add the sieved stock and a tin of tomatoes, chuck in a bit of honey to take the edge off the tinned tomatoes. Check for seasoning and simmer gently for 2o minutes. Rest for twenty minutes and serve over fresh egg pasta such as tagliatelle, pappardelle or fettuccine or whatever you like.