Ducks Mahal

bra•ci•o•la (brä’chē-ō’lə, brä-chō’-) n. A thin slice of meat, usually wrapped around a stuffing and cooked with wine. Pronounced “bra-shoal”

I’m always cooking. Never pastries or bread but the main stuff. Just seems lately I’d thought I’d share some of it. Some dishes are better than others, but you know this stuff has a high Marginal Utility for me with respect to price. Marginal Utility is like a way big economics term that roughly means “satisfaction.” For each additional dollar I spend on cooking, it yields roughly the same amount of satisfaction as the last dollar spent. Surely, there must be things in your life that are the same, like maybe shoes?

Down here, these Italians have made a lot of dishes you wouldn’t find in other locations. Braciola is a dish from the 40s really, in that it has a lot of tomato gravy on it. It is an adaptation on other veal dishes from the old country but this one allows for any beef; parts of new bovines, like veal and parts of slightly older bovines. In fact, most recipes call for skirt steak, but I used a thinly cut round steak in this one. I take the thinly cut round steak and beat the hell out of it with a meat tenderizer. Then I roll it with stuff and bake it in a really nice red gravy with wine.

Now I argue, some folks will tell you it is stuffed with boiled eggs and raisins and cheese and any other little condiments you might have lying around. But, the real New Orleans restaurants serve it with a spinach stuffing.

Can we get started?

Tomato Gravy
1 can of tomato sauce
½ green pepper (finely chopped)
½ onion (finely chopped)
Italian herbs
1 Tbsp Olive Oil
1 or 2 fresh tomatoes (chopped)
½ cup of dry red wine
1 garlic clove (in a garlic press)

In a sauce pan, add oil and sauté onions and green pepper. After the onions get clear (about 8 minutes) add garlic, stir, then add wine. Add herbs, tomatoes, tomato sauce and let cook on low for awhile. Just get it hot, put it on a back burner on low, low and low and fugetaboutit.

Spinach Stuffing
1 package of frozen spinach, thawed and drained completely
Three or four baby bellas (portabella) mushrooms, de-stemmed, cut in half, sliced thin)
½ onion (finely chopped)
1 clove garlic (pressed)
1 Tbsp olive oil

In a frying pan (I used a wok) add oil, get hot, sauté onions and mushrooms, add spinach, salt and pepper to taste and cook for several minutes then turn off heat and leave on a burner and fugetaboutit.

The Meat
1 lb, two steaks of thinly cut round, about the size of a platter – almost.

Take wax paper and place under it and over it and “Whack the ever-loving-daylights out of it.” Make it thin. Make it yell, “Oh no, please, oh no, please.” Bada-bing, bada-bing with a couple Italian hits and I’m not talking MP3 top 40 songs here, see what I’m saying? Whack that meat. Then, fugetaboutit.

Cook it
Preheat oven at 325. Add stuffing to the widest part and roll the meat. Roll it so that you will later cut against the grain when served. Place a toothpick in it. Now, you can hog tie it with string if you want but I think that’s maybe getting a little too violent don’t you?

Place in a casserole dish covered, add wine, then add sauce and cook 1 1/2 hours.

When serving, cover with shredded Pecorino Parmigiano.

See picks below of the final result. Um-yum!