Recipe: Braciola
Recipe Author: Michele O'Sullivan
Found on: allrecipes.com
Whittlerz.com Search Criteria:
- Ingredients I Want:
- top round
- cheese
- Ingredients I Don't Want:
- N/A
The Selection
It's football divisional playoff weekend, so time to find something hearty, but if possible DASH diet compatible (if possible). According to a healthy eating article in SFGate, any beef cut with 'round', 'chuck', or 'loin' in it's name would quality as lean or extra lean (key for the type of beef that meets DASH guidelines.
I have not used top round in a Sunday Dinner previously so thought I would try a recipe search on whittlerz.com for top round and cheese. Only 18 recipes returned. A few had the odd name 'braciola'. I always look for interesting recipe names (if I can't figure out how to pronounce it, there's no way I could have cooked it before). The recipe includes Pasta and red sauce, so something different than standard meatballs.
Best advice for this recipe is to have everything, including pieces of string to tie the braciola together, setup ahead of time. If not, you will be continuously washing hands throughout preparation because there is a lot of handling of the meat.
The recipe asked for a jarred pasta sauce (yuch!). Pasta sauce is pretty easy to make. For this recipe I used the same sauce from the Sausage Sandwich recipe.
For the pasta, I chose Farfalle (or bow tie pasta).
The result was great. A good alternative to sausage or meatballs, but does require a bit more work. The top round slices need to be as thin as possible (which is hard to do) as the leaner meat tends to be tougher, but thin slices make a big difference.
I have not used top round in a Sunday Dinner previously so thought I would try a recipe search on whittlerz.com for top round and cheese. Only 18 recipes returned. A few had the odd name 'braciola'. I always look for interesting recipe names (if I can't figure out how to pronounce it, there's no way I could have cooked it before). The recipe includes Pasta and red sauce, so something different than standard meatballs.
The Preparation
I had to find some videos to make sure I understood how to cut the top round. I found a Tyler Florence video for braciola that used flank steak, but it helped show what was needed. You need to cut across the face of the steak to give big flat pieces.Best advice for this recipe is to have everything, including pieces of string to tie the braciola together, setup ahead of time. If not, you will be continuously washing hands throughout preparation because there is a lot of handling of the meat.
The recipe asked for a jarred pasta sauce (yuch!). Pasta sauce is pretty easy to make. For this recipe I used the same sauce from the Sausage Sandwich recipe.
For the pasta, I chose Farfalle (or bow tie pasta).
The Outcome
OK, so I did not look at pronunciation for the name of this recipe until after preparation. This was the one meal that Debra from Everybody Loves Raymond got right.The result was great. A good alternative to sausage or meatballs, but does require a bit more work. The top round slices need to be as thin as possible (which is hard to do) as the leaner meat tends to be tougher, but thin slices make a big difference.
