Tuscan Beef Stew with Chianti and Slow Cooked Onions | Spezzatino di Manzo alla Toscana con Chianti e Cipolle
Spezzatino di manzo alla toscana is a stew with only two ingredients doing the real work: the beef and the wine it cooks in. There is a little tomato, a carrot, a stick of celery, rosemary and sage, but the character comes from Chianti and from a weight of onion that surprises people: two pounds for three of beef, cooked slowly in oil before anything else enters the pan.
What separates it from the braises of the north is the wine. Sangiovese is not Nebbiolo, and a stew built on Chianti behaves differently from one built on Barolo: leaner, brighter, more savoury, tender sooner. The sauce comes out dark and glossy but still lively at the edges, and that liveliness is why the onions are there in that weight.
Nothing in the method is difficult: it asks for patience with the onions, patience with the wine reduction, and an oven low enough that the liquid never boils.
Yield: 6 servings. Prep: 35 minutes. Onions: 50 minutes. Braise: 2 hours 30 minutes to 3 hours. Rest: 20 minutes. Difficulty: intermediate. Course: secondo. Region: Tuscany, Val di Chiana and the Chianti hills.
The Story
This stew belongs to the Chianina, the enormous white cattle of the Val di Chiana, and to the fact that those animals were not raised for meat. They were draught oxen, slaughtered when they were too old to pull a plough across the clay hills of southern Tuscany, when their muscle was dense, dark and laced with connective tissue. Meat like that cannot be grilled: it has to be cut small and cooked for hours in liquid, which is the origin of the dish.
The loin of such an animal became the bistecca that made Florence famous, and it was sold or kept for a feast day. What stayed in the farmhouse was the shoulder, the neck and the shin, still the correct cuts today. Under the mezzadria that organised Tuscan country life into the last century, families kept a share of what the land produced rather than wages, so wine, oil and onions were plentiful while beef was rationed.
The wine in the pot was the wine on the table, drawn from the household fiasco of young Chianti, never a bottle bought for cooking, which is why Tuscan braises taste of Sangiovese. It also explains why the dish was never a brasato: nobody with limited firewood cooked a whole piece of an old working animal for five hours, so they cut it small, from spezzare, to break into pieces.
Ingredients
For the beef
Boneless beef chuck, cut into 1 1/2 inch cubes, 3 lb (1.35 kg)
Fine sea salt, 2 tsp (12 g)
Extra virgin olive oil, 3 tbsp (45 ml)
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
For the onions
Yellow onions, thinly sliced, 2 lb (900 g)
Extra virgin olive oil, 3 tbsp (45 ml)
Fine sea salt, 1/2 tsp (3 g)
For the braise
Chianti Classico or another young Sangiovese red, 3 cups (720 ml)
Canned peeled tomatoes, crushed by hand, 1 cup (240 g)
Tomato paste, 1 tbsp (16 g)
Beef stock, hot, 2 cups (480 ml)
Carrot, small dice, 1 medium
Celery stalk, small dice, 1
Garlic cloves, crushed, 3
Fresh rosemary sprig, 1
Fresh sage leaves, 5
Bay leaves, 2
Black peppercorns, 8
For finishing
Extra virgin olive oil, 2 tbsp (30 ml)
Flat leaf parsley, chopped, 1 tbsp
Fine sea salt, to taste
Tuscan bread, thickly sliced and grilled, 6 slices
Preparation
Step 1
Trim and salt the beef. Cut the chuck into cubes of about 1 1/2 inches, following the seams of the muscle. Take off hard silverskin and grey fat but leave the soft white sheets of connective tissue inside, because that collagen becomes gelatin. Salt the cubes with the full 2 teaspoons, leave them at room temperature while the onions cook, then pat them dry.
Step 2
Cook the onions down. Put the sliced onions in a wide heavy casserole with 3 tablespoons of oil and the 1/2 teaspoon of salt, cover, and set over low heat for 15 minutes so they sweat rather than fry. Uncover and carry on 30 to 40 minutes, stirring often, until the volume has collapsed by two thirds and the colour is a deep even gold. Nothing must catch on the base, since scorched onion is bitter for good.
Step 3
Brown the beef. Wipe the casserole out, raise the heat to medium high and add the remaining oil. Put the cubes in with space between them, in two or three lots, leaving each face alone until it has taken real colour, about 8 minutes a lot. Grind pepper over them and move each lot to the bowl with the onions. Do not wash the casserole: the browned film on the base is half the flavour.
Step 4
Reduce the Chianti. Off the heat, pour in all 3 cups of wine and scrape the base clean. Return it to medium high and reduce for 12 to 15 minutes, until a little more than half the volume has gone, the smell has shifted from alcohol to dark fruit, and what is left looks syrupy at the edge of the pan. Almost every recipe cuts this short, and it decides whether the stew tastes round or sour.
Step 5
Build the braise. Stir the tomato paste into the reduced wine and cook it a minute until it darkens, then add the tomatoes, carrot, celery and garlic. Return the beef and onions with every drop of juice in the bowl, and pour in hot stock until the liquid reaches three quarters of the way up the meat and no further. Tie the rosemary, sage, bay and peppercorns into a bundle, bury it, and bring everything to a bare simmer.
Step 6
Braise low and slow. Set the lid slightly ajar and put the casserole into a 300°F (150°C) oven for 2 hours 30 minutes to 3 hours, looking in after 2. The surface should show an occasional lazy bubble and nothing more: if it is simmering, drop to 285°F (140°C). The centre of the cubes needs to reach about 200°F (93°C) and hold there an hour, the range in which collagen finishes converting. Top up with hot stock if the level drops below the meat.
Step 7
Rest and finish the sauce. Lift out the herb bundle, leave the casserole off the heat uncovered for 20 minutes, then spoon the clear fat off the surface. If the sauce is thin, lift the meat out and reduce the liquid until it coats a spoon. Off the heat stir in the last 2 tablespoons of olive oil, taste for salt and add the parsley. Better still, refrigerate it overnight and reheat the next day.
Plating
Serve it hot in warmed shallow bowls rather than on plates, because the sauce is loose enough to run and that is half the point. Two or three cubes a person with a generous ladle of sauce is the right proportion, and the meat is spooned, not arranged. Add the parsley at the table so it is still green.
A thick slice of grilled Tuscan bread at the side of the bowl is the traditional accompaniment, since the sauce is built to be mopped. Cannellini beans dressed in oil, crushed potatoes, soft polenta or wilted cavolo nero all belong with it. No grated cheese and no lemon: both fight the wine.
Professional Technique
Everything technical here follows from what Sangiovese is: a grape of high acidity and medium tannin, usually bottled around pH 3.3 to 3.5, with total acidity well above most Italian reds. In a long braise that acidity does work tannin cannot. Hydrogen ions catalyse the hydrolysis of the collagen triple helix, loosening the bonds that hold it rigid, so collagen converts to gelatin at a lower temperature and in less time than in a neutral liquid. A Chianti braise is spoon tender at two and a half hours where the same cut in stock alone wants three and a half. And because the softening comes from acid and not from tannin, the fondo stays bright and savoury as it reduces instead of turning dry and austere the way a concentrated tannic sauce does.
The cost is that the same acidity tastes aggressive if it is left alone, and there are two honest corrections. The first is reduction taken further than feels necessary: driving the wine past half its volume before any stock arrives boils off the volatile acetic and ethyl acetate notes the nose reads as sourness, while concentrating the fixed tartaric and malic acids the palate reads as freshness. The second is fat: the 2 tablespoons of olive oil stirred in off the heat coat the tongue and lower the perception of acid without changing a single measurement of it, which is why they go in raw and last. Bicarbonate of soda is no substitute, since it neutralises the acid and takes the lift of the dish with it.
The third correction is the onion, which is why two pounds is not an exaggeration. Cooked slowly to a deep gold, that weight delivers a real quantity of free glucose and fructose, broken out of the fructans and sucrose stored in the raw bulb. Sweetness is the most direct suppressor of perceived sourness there is, more effective gram for gram than the tomato or the carrot, and it works on the acid without muting the fruit of the wine. Cook it fast, or add it raw with the stock, and those sugars never free themselves and the stew arrives sharp. The onion here is structural, not an aromatic.
Texture and Moisture Control
Braised beef feels moist because of gelatin, not because of water. Muscle fibres squeeze their water out well before 160°F (71°C) and never take it back, so a cube of chuck at the two hour mark is drier than it was raw. What makes it succulent from there on is collagen dissolving into gelatin, which holds liquid between the fibres and gives the sauce its body. This is why the temperature window matters more than the clock: held near 200°F (93°C) the conversion runs steadily, while a boiling liquid contracts the fibres violently and leaves meat that is stringy and dry in the middle of a full pot.
Judge the sauce only once the fat is off and the pot has stood 20 minutes, because gelatin thickens as it cools and a sauce that looks thin at braising temperature is often right at eating temperature. If it still runs off a spoon, reduce it with the meat removed. Refrigerating it overnight shows what you really have: the fat sets into a cap you lift off whole, and the sauce beneath sets to a soft jelly if the collagen converted and stays liquid if it did not.
Professional Mise en Place
This is a dish of one long unattended stretch and two short demanding ones, the onions and the wine reduction.
Equipment and tools
Heavy casserole with a lid, about 6 quarts, cast iron or copper
Boning knife for trimming and cubing the chuck
Wooden spoon for deglazing, slotted spoon for the meat
Instant read thermometer
Kitchen string, ladle, tray for the beef
Prepared ahead
Beef trimmed, cubed and salted up to 12 hours ahead, covered and chilled
Onions sliced 1 day ahead, or cooked down completely 2 days ahead
Carrot and celery diced, garlic crushed, on the day
Herb bundle tied on the day
The whole stew cooked 1 day ahead, which improves it
Service setup
Stew held covered over the lowest heat or in a 210°F (100°C) oven
Bowls warming, bread sliced ready for the grill
Hot stock in a small pan for adjusting the sauce
Parsley and finishing oil within reach, added last
Slotted spoon and ladle to portion meat and sauce
Chef Tips
Buy the cut whole and break it down yourself. Ask for chuck, or cappello del prete or shin in Italy, and refuse anything sold pre cut as stewing beef: that is trimmings from several muscles, which cook at different rates, so some cubes collapse while others stay tough.
Use a wine you would happily drink a glass of. A young Chianti is ideal and no Riserva is needed, but it must not be oxidised and never supermarket cooking wine, which is salted and wrecks the seasoning.
Make it a day ahead whenever you can. The gelatin sets, the fat lifts off cleanly, the acidity settles and the onion sweetness spreads. Waiting is a technique here, not a convenience.
If the sauce is still sharper than you want, do not reach for sugar. Give it 10 more minutes of reduction with the meat out, stir in the olive oil off the heat, and if it needs more, blend a ladle of the onions smooth and stir it back in.
Common Mistakes
Covering the meat completely with liquid. That is boiled beef, not a braise. The cubes sitting partly above the surface keep concentrating while the ones below cook, and the sauce reduces as it goes. Three quarters of the way up is the level.
Not reducing the wine far enough. Chianti diluted at once with stock gives a thin, sour sauce that no later simmering repairs, because the aggressive volatile acids never boiled off. Take it past half volume on its own first.
Letting the braise simmer instead of barely moving. A real simmer contracts the fibres hard and tears the cubes into threads, so the meat ends up dry in a full pot of liquid. An occasional bubble and nothing more, usually 300°F (150°C), lid ajar.
Choosing a heavily oaked or very tannic red. Young Sangiovese works because its acidity softens the collagen while its tannin stays moderate. A tannic northern red or a barrique aged bottling concentrates tannin and oak over three hours and finishes drying.
Wine Pairing
Chianti Classico DOCG: The wine in the pot and the first bottle to open beside it. Its acidity arrives at the level of the sauce, so neither exaggerates the other, and its medium tannin has the gelatin and the beef fat to bind to instead of drying the palate. The sour cherry and dried herb finish run into the rosemary and sage.
Chianti Rufina DOCG: From the cooler high ground east of Florence, where the harvest comes later, the acidity stays higher and the tannin is finer. That edge is why you choose it: it cuts through two pounds of caramelised onion, and it is the bottle for a sauce that came out sweeter than you intended.
Carmignano DOCG: Sangiovese with a long sanctioned share of Cabernet in the blend, which brings blackcurrant depth and firmer tannin than straight Chianti. That firmness handles the browned crust and the sweetness of the onion at once, and it has the substance for a bowl with polenta.
Vino Nobile di Montepulciano DOCG: The Prugnolo Gentile clone of Sangiovese grown south of Siena, bottled after longer ageing, so the tannin is polished and the mid palate warmer. Pour it on the second day, when the sauce has deepened and a leaner wine would seem slight against it.
Rosso di Montalcino DOC: Younger Sangiovese from the Montalcino hills, riper in fruit and softer in tannin than its Brunello neighbour but with the acidity intact. It is the lightest structure here, right for a smaller portion at lunch with bread and cannellini beans.
Storage & Reheating
Cool the stew to room temperature within two hours, then refrigerate it in an airtight container with the meat submerged in its sauce, where it keeps 4 days and is better on the second and third day. Leave the fat cap in place, since it seals the surface, and lift it off before reheating. Never store the meat and the sauce separately: the cubes firm up and dry within hours out of the liquid.
It freezes very well, which few braises do, for up to 3 months. Freeze it in portions with enough sauce to cover, in containers filled to within half an inch of the rim. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator, never in water or a microwave, since uneven thawing cooks the outside of the cubes while the middle is frozen.
Reheat it covered over low heat or in a 300°F (150°C) oven, loosening it with a splash of hot stock if the sauce has set firmly. Stop as soon as it is hot through, around 165°F (74°C), and never let it boil again: a second hard boil is what turns leftover stew stringy. Add the parsley and raw oil after reheating.
Nutrition
Per serving, based on 6 servings, fat cap removed and served without bread:
Calories: 540 kcal
Total Fat: 28 g
Saturated Fat: 8 g
Trans Fat: 0 g
Unsaturated Fat: 19 g
Cholesterol: 145 mg
Sodium: 690 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 19 g
Fiber: 3 g
Total Sugars: 9 g
Added Sugars: 0 g
Protein: 48 g
Lactose: 0 g
Principal micronutrients: iron, zinc, vitamin B12, niacin, selenium, potassium, phosphorus
These figures are estimates. Most of the alcohol and much of the wine volume cook away, the fat lifted off the surface is not counted, and the sodium depends on the stock as much as on the salt added to the meat.
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