Recipe Peposa Dell'Impruneta (Tuscan Black Pepper Beef)

C

caseydog

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Ingredients​

  • Beef short ribs
  • 1 tablespoon kosher salt
  • 8 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
  • 2 tablespoons whole black peppercorns, freshly crushed
  • 1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
  • 3 sage leaves
  • 3 small sprigs fresh rosemary
  • 2 cups Chianti
  • salt to taste, to adjust sauce

Directions​

  • Step 1
    Place meat in a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle all sides generously with 1 tablespoon kosher salt.
  • Step 2
    Place chopped garlic and a pinch of salt in a mortar and mash with pestle until pastelike. Transfer mixture into bowl with beef and rub onto all sides of meat. Add crushed peppercorns and ground pepper. Distribute evenly over all sides of beef. Transfer to a deep skillet or Dutch oven bone side down. Tuck sage leaves, rosemary, and dry bay leaves between pieces of meat. Carefully add wine along the side of the pan to avoid washing over the top of the meat.
  • Step 3
    Place pan over high heat and bring to a simmer; reduce heat to low. Cover tightly. Cook until meat is fork tender, turning pieces every 30 minutes or so, about 3 1/2 hours. Transfer pieces of meat to a warm bowl.
  • Step 4
    Increase heat to high and bring braising liquid to a boil. Simmer until liquid is reduced by about half or until slightly thickened, 8 to 10 minutes. Remove bones from meat.
  • Step 5
    When sauce is thickened, transfer meat back to skillet. Reduce heat to medium-low and spoon sauce over meat. Cook until until heated through, about 5 minutes.
Before cooking...

Peposa002.jpg


Finished product...

Peposa001.jpg


This is actually a Chef John recipe. I made very few changes.

CD
 
Last edited:
The Late Night Gourmet said:
I love this recipe. The beef and the wine do a dance with the pepper and the garlic, with the herbs cutting in to make their presence felt. This is a rock solid classic combo, and I also agree with Morning Glory that the couscous is a good pairing.
Click to expand...

Well, I was planning to use polenta, but couldn't find any at the stores near me. I found this with the pasta. It is from Italy, and is called Acini de Pepe no. 78. Maybe MypinchofItaly can help translate.

CD
 
caseydog said:

Ingredients​

  • Beef short ribs
  • 1 tablespoon kosher salt
  • 8 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
  • 2 tablespoons whole black peppercorns, freshly crushed
  • 1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
  • 3 sage leaves
  • 3 small sprigs fresh rosemary
  • 2 cups Chianti
  • salt to taste, to adjust sauce

Directions​

  • Step 1
    Place meat in a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle all sides generously with 1 tablespoon kosher salt.
  • Step 2
    Place chopped garlic and a pinch of salt in a mortar and mash with pestle until pastelike. Add tomato paste; mash until blended. Transfer mixture into bowl with beef and rub onto all sides of meat. Add crushed peppercorns and ground pepper. Distribute evenly over all sides of beef. Transfer to a deep skillet or Dutch oven bone side down. Tuck sage leaves, rosemary, and dry bay leaves between pieces of meat. Carefully add wine along the side of the pan to avoid washing over the top of the meat.
  • Step 3
    Place pan over high heat and bring to a simmer; reduce heat to low. Cover tightly. Cook until meat is fork tender, turning pieces every 30 minutes or so, about 3 1/2 hours. Transfer pieces of meat to a warm bowl.
  • Step 4
    Increase heat to high and bring braising liquid to a boil. Simmer until liquid is reduced by about half or until slightly thickened, 8 to 10 minutes. Remove bones from meat.
  • Step 5
    When sauce is thickened, transfer meat back to skillet. Reduce heat to medium-low and spoon sauce over meat. Cook until until heated through, about 5 minutes.
Before cooking...

View attachment 58043

Finished product...

View attachment 58042​


This is actually a Chef John recipe. I made very few changes.

CD
Click to expand...

I was freezer diving yesterday, found lamb ribs. I wondered what I could do with them. I'm trying your recipe but with lamb. Btw best lamb ribs I've had were Thai cooked. Melted in the mouth.

Russ
 
caseydog said:
Well, I was planning to use polenta, but couldn't find any at the stores near me. I found this with the pasta. It is from Italy, and is called Acini de Pepe no. 78. Maybe MypinchofItaly can help translate.

CD
Click to expand...

Acini de Pepe are the pasta version of couscous (much like orzo is the pasta version of rice):

ING-acini-di-pepe-pasta-main.jpg


They're little pellets instead of little grains. I love Acini de Pepe with olive oil, sun dried tomatoes, and garlic, but I don't think it would be as good with steak. They're too soft to stand up to beef. You picked the best pairing, in my opinion.
 
The Late Night Gourmet said:
Acini de Pepe are the pasta version of couscous (much like orzo is the pasta version of rice):

They're little pellets instead of little grains. I love Acini de Pepe with olive oil, sun dried tomatoes, and garlic, but I don't think it would be as good with steak. They're too soft to stand up to beef. You picked the best pairing, in my opinion.
Click to expand...

I had never even heard of it before. It was good, and it did work with the Peposa. It was a bit of a shot in the dark, and I got lucky. I also don't think it would work with something like a medium rare steak, but I don't think any pasta would work with a medium rare steak. With beef that has been braised for three hours in red wine, it worked.

CD
 
The Late Night Gourmet said:
When you put it that way, it makes a lot of sense: it formed a sort of pasta sauce.
Click to expand...

Sort of. I didn't sauce the pasta, but the pasta was a good, starchy balance to the beef. When I ate it, I made sure to get some beef and pasta in every bite. So, in that sense, the beef was kind of like a sauce.

When I get KFC chicken tenders, I always get a side of their mashed potatoes, and I dip the chicken in the potatoes. Sounds weird, but it works for me. I would say that the wine braised beef and the Acini de Pepe were like that.

I would still like to try the peposa with polenta, but I'll have to wait until the grocery stores are back to normal. The shelves are decimated after last week's storms. I was looking at either Acini de Pepe or rice, this time around, and rice seemed too "Texas" to me. I wanted something "Italian." Like I said, I got lucky with this choice. I had no what it was, and it worked.

CD
 
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