Saturday, December 29, 2007

Beef in Red Wine

I remember watching David Rocco's Viva Dolce when he shared this recipe in the programme. It seemed so easy to make. Just need to add lots of purple onions with garlic and then season the red meat with pepper and salt and stew the whole pot with a whole bottle of red wine called Chianti for about 2 hours.
I found Chianti a bit too expensive for me and decided to get what you see here based on the recomendation of the promoter at Giant.
By the time the dish was ready I had dh to do the taste test. He took one look at the dish and commented, "Why is the meat purplish black in color? Gosh ...are you going to serve this for our gathering? Maybe you better not serve this." Calmly , I said, "What about the taste? You think it's passable?" He replied in half jest, " If I close my eyes to eat, it's actually quite good if you like the red wine taste." What went on inside my head was what a waste it would be to throw away a whole kilogram of beef chunks after spending so much effort to cook the dish.
So what you see in the photo was my attempt to make the color of the dish more appealing by adding in the colored peppers after frying them with garlic. The verdict at the gathering was... some liked it and some did not. So I guess, the taste of red wine is an acquired taste. I think it's better to cook this dish with Carlsberg beer instead since my family hardly drink red wine.
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cecily...you have to add some other ingredients to flavour the dish as beef in Italy is a lot 'fresher' in taste and hence easier to season.
Also,if wine is the main ingredient in the dish,it should be of a higher quality like Chianti...I will drop you an email and give you some tips on how to fine tune this dish... =)

p.s: I like Rocco's programme,very free and easy... showing you the real sights and sounds of Italy...wonderful!

Chawanmushi said...

Hi stef
Thanks for your insight into this dish. I will be waiting eagerly for your email LOL
This dish nearly made me go bonkers after seeing the purple black meat color.LOL