What’s cooking?……Involtini

I promised a recipe today, so here goes.

Several weeks ago I posted a recipe for meatballs and explained, that here locally, they are called brasciol’. Well, before coming here, I always understood brasciol’ to be a filled meat roll that is then cooked in sauce, otherwise known as involtini.

Ingredients for Involtini

8 thin slices beef
1 cup grated Parmigiano
1 cup bread crumbs
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
1 tablespoon ground hot pepper
salt
Olive oil for frying

Sauce

1.5 liters passato (tomato sauce)
2 cloves garlic
1/4 cup fresh basil chopped
1/4 cup fresh parsley chopped
1 tablespoon tomato paste

Before you get started making the involtini, it’s best to get your sauce simmering. I’ve given this recipe before, but I’ll repeat it here just in case. When I cook a sauce that has meat in it, I rarely used chopped or crushed tomatoes, preferring the smooth liquid tomato passato. It will be a bit thinner, but since it will be simmering for a while, it will thicken as it goes and take on the flavor of the meat.

In a pot large enough to hold all of your involtini (and anything else you want to put in there), pour your sauce in and start it simmering on low. Add the whole (peeled) garlic cloves, parsley and basil and allow to simmer slowly while you prepare the involtini. Make sure the flame is on low as you don’t want it to burn on the bottom. Once the sauce is hot, add a bit of tomato paste and stir. Then taste for salt, and add if necessary.

In a bowl, mix together the grated Parmigiano, bread crumbs, parsley, and ground hot pepper. You can add more or less hot pepper depending upon your tastes. But remember, when you cook these in the sauce, some of the spiciness from the hot pepper will spread into the sauce.

Using a meat tenderizer, pound each slice of meat until it is thin but not torn. Then, lay each piece flat, season with salt. Divide the bread crumb mixture evenly between the 8 slices of meat. Make sure it is spread thinly.

You may have some of the mixture left over depending upon the size of your meat slices. Now, roll each piece up tightly and skewer with a toothpick to hold it together.

Now, heat the oil in a large frying pan over high heat, and quickly brown the involtini on all sides. You don’t want to cook the insides, just brown the outside.

Once they are brown on all sides, pop them into the hot sauce and allow to simmer. These can be made 2 hours in advance and left to simmer the entire time, stirring every so often. Just be careful as you stir that you don’t break the involtini. The longer they cook, the more tender they get. When you take them out of the sauce, you’ll be able to cut them with a fork.

Sorry, but I don’t have a picture of the sauce covered ones. They were gobbled up too quickly yesterday.

To round out the meal, cook up some rigatoni and pour some of the spicy, meaty sauce over it.

By the way, the involtini are also fantastic grilled, without the tomato sauce. Just make sure they are far enough from the flame that they don’t get burnt on the outside before being cooked on the inside.

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