Peposo - Tuscan Black Pepper Beef - Food Wishes

Hi, I'm Chef John from Food Wishes.com with paposo. That's right, this amazing

black

pepper

beef

is as delicious as its history is interesting, as it was invented by terracotta tile workers as a way to cook cuts of meat that were very, very tough and often very poor quality, as it's not even close to being fresh, but cooking it with a ton of

black

pepper

, wine and garlic produced something that was still incredibly delicious, so you can imagine how good it will be using high quality

beef

, which is exactly what we're going to use and although beef thighs would be the more traditional cut, I'm going to use these beef ribs which I think are absolutely perfect for this recipe so I have six of these which will be about three. pounds and to start, what we're going to do is season them very generously with kosher salt, okay, very generously, these are big pieces of meat and we're going to do it all over the place and to save time I'm just going to show you the first and the last side, but you're going to want to salt them all over and then once our meat is salted, what we want to do is let it sit in the bowl while we prepare our garlic paste and I'm going to do that by crushing these minced garlic cloves in this mortar along with a large pinch of salt.

Okay, feel free to use a garlic press if you want, but this works much better and you really need to have one. of these in your kitchen, so we'll go ahead and mash that garlic until it's basically a paste, at which point, speaking of pasta, we'll add about a tablespoon of tomato paste and we'll go ahead and mash that up for the same way, tomato paste would not have been found in the original recipe, since this dish predates Columbus' arrival in the United States and most people don't realize that there were no tomatoes in Italy before that, but Anyway enough with the history lesson about our times.

When the mixture is ready, we're going to go ahead and transfer it to our meat and then using one or more bare hands, we're going to go ahead and massage the entire surface and again I'm editing to save time, but make sure you're very thorough and you're rubbing that stuff into every nook and of course in every crevice and then what we're going to do once our meat is coated in our garlic mixture is we're going to move on to probably the most important ingredient, our black pepper, and for this recipe we're going to use two types, we're going to use some freshly ground the old fashioned way, as well as a couple of tablespoons of peppercorns that we're going to freshly crush and to do that I like to use the bottom of a small frying pan in my cut. just press and rub and rub and press and you will see that in just a few seconds all those peppercorns will be crushed and while it is true, you can buy cracked black peppercorns, the flavor you release by doing it this way is significantly more intense . and fragrant and for this particular dish well worth the extra minute of work and then what we're going to do at this point is we're going to go ahead and add it to our meat along with a big spoonful of freshly ground black pepper and Go ahead and mix all of that together until the meat is covered and thanks to our garlic paste it should adhere well to the surface.

Oh, by the way, if you're worried about biting into those big chunks of black pepper, don't because this is going to braise for so long by the time the meat is tender, so will those chunks of pepper and then what we're going to do once that our meat has been properly seasoned is to transfer it to our skillet or pot bone side down and by the way, how is it? There isn't a band by that name yet, but anyway we're going to transfer them bone side down and then, believe it or not, I decide to add a little more freshly ground black pepper on top and I'd love to tell you why, but I don't really have a good reason, so I went a little bit overboard and then at this point we're going to add some fresh herb.

I'm going to sneak in three or four sage leaves here and there, wow! and we will also add three or four small sprigs of rosemary, at which point we can carefully pour in our red wine and although a couple of cups of any dry red wine would work since this recipe is from the chianti region, that is what I suggest use The

food

gods love that sort of thing and that will help them look favorably on this dish, so I'll go ahead and add a couple glasses of wine, at which point we'll head over to the stove and set this on . on high heat because we want to bring it to a simmer in any deep skillet like this will work great or even in something like a dutch oven just make sure it has a tight fitting lid as that's an important thing and as you know anytime .

I'm waiting for something to simmer. I'm always trying to remember what I forgot and in this case it was a couple of bay leaves so I went ahead and put them in and then what are we going to do as soon as it starts to simmer, reduce the heat to low, cover this and cook it for about three and a half hours or so or until tender and of course your times can and probably will vary but don't worry if you have a fork. I'm going to be able to try it and what I'd like to do at the hour and a half mark is uncover it and set them aside and then I'll take it back and let it simmer for about 30 more minutes. and then flip them to the opposite side and that's pretty much how it's going to be until they're done, so we just let them cook on low heat, turning them every half hour or so, which for obvious reasons I'm going to edit. a little bit of that and by the way if you're turning it over one of the bones comes out don't worry it's totally normal and we'll take them out anyway which reminds me they sell something called boneless beef ribs they would work here. but I really think the bone adds a lot of flavor, which is why I almost always buy the bone in short ribs, but we'll still let them continue to simmer covered and turning them occasionally until, like I said, they're fork tender and not under Under no circumstances, stop cooking them over low heat until you can easily insert a fork.

Okay, why do some people stop? I'll never understand it so I did a test run with mine and they felt good and once that happens we'll go ahead and remove that meat to a rock rest and then once we've undone the pan we'll turn the heat up to high and we'll reduce those brazing liquids by about half or until they thicken a little bit and since that's going to take a few minutes while we're waiting, we can go ahead and get those ribs out of our meat, they should slide them out very easily and if they don't, They're not cooked, but these were and then as usual, while our sauce is boiling, you can always move on. and trim some of that fat off the top, although in most of the world that would be considered a mistake and is generally frowned upon, but anyway, if you're keeping score at home, I trimmed some off and like I said, We will let it reduce. reduce by about half or until thickened and this is what mine looked like when I got to that point and other than trying that seasoning sauce we're almost done all we have to do is transfer our meat again and drizzle it with that. spicy sauce and once the meat is piping hot again that's it we're pretty much ready to serve and yes you can absolutely make this ahead of time and just reheat it and it will probably come out even better but I was starving anyway so that I went ahead and served. some polenta and of course some of that dark dangerous sauce and while this is amazing with polenta, rice or pasta, it also works wonderfully, so exactly what you serve this with will be up to you after all , you are the virtuosos of your proposals and then I finished with a sprig of rosemary so I could take a couple of photos and that's it.

My version of this old fashioned black pepper braised beef is ready and ready to cut, literally, good as I go in to try here the knife is mainly to show that you should really be able to tear this meat apart with a fork and call this tasty It really doesn't do it justice. When you take the first bite, you'll wonder if there's too much black. pepper, but when you take the second one you know it's not too much, it's the perfect amount as it balances beautifully with the acidity of the wine, which also becomes a little sweet once it reduces, not to mention all that garlic and a little touch of grass, so this really is a truly unique and intensely flavorful dish and I'll say it again, don't stop cooking those ribs until you can pull them apart with a fork like this, okay, that's really the only way to Ruin this, but anyway that's my opinion on poposo, you're welcome, black pepper companies.

I hope your inventories are well stocked, so if you're using this recipe to cover up spoiled meat, which I really hope you're not, or if you use some. Wonderfully fresh ribs like the ones I made. I really hope you try them soon, so check out

food

wishes

.com for all the ingredient quantities and more information as usual, and as always, enjoy.