Italian Braised Beef with Root Vegetables

My mom, Angel, has always been the best cook in the neighborhood and everybody knew it. In the 1970s and '80s, when most of my friends were eating fast food and processed junk, all the kids wanted to come to my house for dinner. (We weren't going to go to the neighbors' houses to eat TV dinners.) This is one of the meals Mom would fix when I was growing up because it was easy, delicious and inexpensive, and it fed a crowd. This was my introduction to braising, the first braised dish I ever made-and I didn't even know we were braising. Mom called it pot roast and we had it weekly. And in true Italian pot roast fashion, we'd eat it over rigatoni. I now sometimes serve it over soft polenta with mascarpone, another excellent option. It showed me how much I loved the deep complex flavors of braises generally, which I prefer to eat over just about any other kind of dish. One of the pleasures of this meal is the big chunks of carrots and celery root that cook in that delicious liquid for four hours; they take on all the flavors of the braising liquid. They don't taste like carrots and celery root anymore; they taste like a steak, and that's why they're so good. A couple of critical steps in this recipe are getting a good sear on the meat and caramelizing the vegetables in the pot before deglazing. Beyond that, the red sauce is critical. And I also think it's important that a third of the meat be above the liquid-one of the factors that for me defines braising-so pot size is important; it shouldn't be so small that the meat is submerged or so big that the meat is sitting in just an inch of liquid.

Recipe courtesy Michael Symon, 2012
Show: Symon's Suppers Episode: Mom's Recipes

Photo: Italian Braised Beef with Root Vegetables

TOTAL TIME: 12 hr
Prep: 25 min
Inactive Prep: --
Cook: 11 hr 35 min
 
YIELD: 8 to 10 servings
LEVEL: Easy

ingredients

  • 3 pounds rump roast
  • Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 3 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 carrot, cut into 1-inch chunks
  • 1 small celery root, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
  • 1 onion, coarsely chopped
  • 2 cloves garlic, smashed
  • 1 cup red wine
  • 2 cups Yia Yia's Sunday Sauce, recipe follows
  • 2 bay leaves, preferably fresh
  • 1 1/2 pounds dried rigatoni, for serving
YIA YIA'S SUNDAY SAUCE:
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • 1 large Spanish onion, finely diced
  • 1 tablespoon kosher salt, or more as needed
  • 6 cloves garlic, sliced
  • Two 28-ounce cans San Marzano tomatoes, with their juice
  • 2 pounds meaty beef bones
  • 1 cup dry white wine
  • 1 tablespoon fresh oregano leaves
  • 1 tablespoon crushed red pepper flakes, optional
  • 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 bay leaf
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Directions

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.

Sprinkle the meat liberally with salt and pepper as much as 1 day in advance. (Cover and refrigerate it if doing so and take the meat out of the fridge 30 minutes before cooking.) Heat the oil in a large Dutch oven over high heat. When the oil is on the verge of smoking, sear the meat for about 2 minutes per side. Move the meat to the side (or remove it from the pot altogether if necessary), and add the carrots, celery root and onions. Brown the vegetables for about 3 minutes, and then add the garlic and cook for 1 to 2 minutes longer.

Pour in the wine and deglaze the pot, scraping up the browned bits on the bottom. Add the Yia Yia's Sunday Sauce, 1 cup water and the bay leaves (and the pot roast if you removed it). Bring the liquid to a simmer and taste for seasoning. Add more salt if necessary. Cover the pot and place it in the oven for 3 hours, basting the meat occasionally during cooking time.

When almost ready to serve, make the rigatoni, if using. Boil in salted water according to package directions until al dente.

Discard the bay leaves before serving. Transfer the meat to a cutting board and slice into bite-size pieces, or shred with 2 forks. Return the meat to the pot of sauce along with the drained rigatoni. Toss to coat, and serve.

Heat the oil in a 4-quart saucepan or large Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onions and cook until translucent, 2 minutes. Add the salt and garlic and cook until everything is soft but not browned, about 3 minutes.

Squeeze the tomatoes one by one into the pan, pulverizing them by hand, and pour in their juice, too. Add the bones, wine, oregano, red pepper flakes, if using, black pepper and bay leaf. Bring the sauce to a simmer, and then reduce the heat to its lowest possible setting, and continue to cook for 8 hours. The sauce should reduce by about one-third.

Taste for seasoning and add more salt if necessary. Remove the bones and bay leaf. If not using right away, let the sauce cool, then cover and refrigerate for up to 1 week or freeze for up to 2 months. Yield: 8 cups.

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Newest Ratings and Reviews

Read all 19 reviews

  • on May 12, 2013

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    Wonderful! I made the Yia Yia Sauce in a CrockPot the night before cooking it on low overnight, then seared the chuck roast and sauteed the veggies in the morning and put the rest of the ingredients called for in another CrockPot, and cooked it on low for about 9 hours. It was so good! I didn't have beef bones for the sauce, so I used beef stock, and substituted 1/2 cup beef stock for 1/2 cup of the water when cooking the beef. I also had to use dried oregano, so only used 1 teaspoon. I did end up ultimately using all of the Yia Yia Sauce, but used my immersion blender on the sauce that remained after adding what was called for in the recipe to the beef. I will use penne instead of rigatoni next time because it was a bit challenging to eat without making a mess.

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  • on February 23, 2013

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    This really was fantastic. I would make the sauce the day before next time and cook the meat even longer the next day. I like the meat to be fall apart tender and it wasn't even after 4 hours of cooking. I might even think to try this dish with beef short ribs next time. I served this over fresh herb and roasted garlic orzo. Very good

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  • on January 20, 2013

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    I found this dish to have great depth of flavor. Allow plenty of time to prepare this dish so that the flavors can develope. I added two tablespoons of butter, and a handful of fresh chopped herbs(parsley and chive and freshly grated parmesan to the penne before topping with the braised beef. It got rave reviews. I can't wait to make it again. I may put the cooked vegetables through a foodmill and add them to the sauce next time.

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