Traditional Italian Tuscan Beef Stew with Cannellini Beans and Rosemary | Spezzatino Toscano di Manzo con Cannellini e Rosmarino

Sep 28

11 min read

Spezzatino Toscano di Manzo con Cannellini e Rosmarino (Traditional Italian Tuscan Beef Stew with Cannellini Beans and Rosemary)

Almost every Italian beef stew is thickened from outside the pot: flour on the meat, a roux at the end, a starch slurry at the last minute. This Tuscan one is not. The body of its sauce comes from the beans, from the starch the cannellini release as they cook and the cloudy water they cook in. That one fact is why beans and beef go in separate pots and meet only twenty minutes before service.

The beef half is slow and plain: a collagen rich cut in generous cubes, dried, browned in small batches, then soffritto, Sangiovese, very little tomato and two and a half hours below a simmer. The rosemary goes in whole and comes out whole. At two hours the sauce is still thin, on purpose; what tightens it is a ladleful of the cooked beans blended with their own water.

Yield: 4 generous servings. Prep: 30 minutes, plus 12 hours soaking. Cook: 3 hours across two pots. Rest: 15 minutes. Difficulty: intermediate. Course: secondo. Region: Tuscany.

The Story

Tuscans have been called mangiafagioli, bean eaters, by the rest of Italy for some four hundred years, and it was not meant kindly. The nickname stuck because it was accurate. When the common bean arrived from the Americas in the sixteenth century, Tuscany took to it harder than anywhere else on the peninsula: in soups, under oil and pepper, in a ribollita, and in pots of meat like this one.

The varieties that grew out of that are still remarkable. The cannellino di Sorana, from one stretch of sandy riverbank in the Valdinievole above Pescia, is the aristocrat, so thin skinned it was sent to popes and now sells at prices closer to saffron than to pulses. The zolfino of Pratomagno is small, round and pale sulphur yellow. The most Tuscan method of all is the fiasco: beans in a glass wine flask with water, garlic, a sage leaf and a thread of oil, the neck plugged with straw, stood in the embers of a dying hearth overnight. Nothing evaporated, and they came out whole and intense in their own concentrated liquid, which is the oldest argument in Italian cooking for what this recipe does in a saucepan.

The meat side is poorer. Spezzatino means something broken into pieces, and that is what it was: shin, shoulder, collar, whatever was left once the valuable cuts had been sold. In the Chianina country of the Val di Chiana, where the enormous white cattle were raised as draught animals first and beef second, the fine cuts went to the bistecca and the household ate the rest. Stretching that meat to feed four needed a filler with substance, and the bean was in the pantry already. Rosemary, wild on every dry Tuscan bank, cost nothing.

Ingredients

For the cannellini beans

Dried cannellini beans, 1 1/4 cups (250 g)
Cold water, 6 cups (1.4 L) for soaking and 6 cups (1.4 L) for cooking
Garlic cloves, unpeeled, crushed, 2
Bay leaf, 1, and fresh sage leaves, 3
Extra virgin olive oil, 1 tbsp (15 ml)
Fine sea salt, 1 tsp (6 g), added only at the end

For the beef

Beef chuck or boneless shin, in 1 1/2 inch cubes, 2 1/4 lb (1 kg)
Fine sea salt, 1 1/4 tsp (7 g)
Freshly ground black pepper, 1/2 tsp (1 g)
Extra virgin olive oil, 3 tbsp (45 ml)

For the braise

Yellow onion, finely diced, 1 cup (140 g)
Carrot, finely diced, 1/2 cup (70 g)
Celery, finely diced, 1/2 cup (60 g)
Garlic cloves, thinly sliced, 3
Tomato paste, 1 tbsp (16 g)
Canned peeled tomatoes, crushed by hand, 1/2 cup (120 g)
Dry red Sangiovese, 1 1/2 cups (360 ml)
Unsalted beef stock, 2 cups (480 ml), plus more as needed
Fresh rosemary, 1 whole sprig, 6 inches (15 cm)
Bay leaf, 1

For finishing

Reserved bean cooking water, 1 cup (240 ml)
Extra virgin olive oil, 2 tbsp (30 ml)
Flat leaf parsley, chopped, 1 tbsp
Fresh rosemary leaves, very finely chopped, 1/4 tsp
Flaky sea salt and coarsely ground black pepper, to taste

Preparation

Step 1

Soak the beans. Cover the cannellini with cold water and leave them 12 hours at cool room temperature, until the skins are smooth and taut. A bean hydrated evenly to the centre cooks evenly and keeps its skin whole, and whole skins let you serve most of them intact.

Step 2

Cook them in unsalted water. Drain, rinse, and put them in a saucepan with 6 cups (1.4 L) of fresh cold water, the crushed unpeeled garlic, bay leaf, sage and the oil. Hold them at the barest movement of the surface for 60 to 90 minutes, until creamy inside with no chalky core. No salt, no tomato, no stock.

Step 3

Salt them late and keep the water. When they are genuinely tender, stir in the salt, take the pan off the heat and let them cool in their own liquid 20 minutes so the salt travels inward. Lift them out, then strain and keep every drop of the cooking water: cloudy, faintly thick, and the thickener for the whole dish.

Step 4

Dry and season the beef. Pat every face of the cubes dry, pressing rather than wiping. Wet beef cannot brown: the surface water has to boil off before the pan reaches browning temperature, and meanwhile the meat steams grey.

Step 5

Brown in small batches. Heat the oil in a heavy casserole over medium high heat until it shimmers. Add only enough cubes to sit in one layer with space between them, three or four batches, and leave each untouched 2 to 3 minutes before turning. Let the pan recover its heat between batches.

Step 6

Build the soffritto and deglaze. Lower the heat and cook the onion, carrot and celery in the same fat for 10 to 12 minutes, scraping the browned residue off the base, until soft and just colouring. Add the garlic for a minute, then the tomato paste for two, until it darkens from red to brick. Pour in the Sangiovese, raise the heat and reduce by half, then add the crushed tomatoes: half a cup, no more, because this is a beef and bean stew.

Step 7

Braise low and slow. Return the beef and every drop of tray juice, then the stock, the whole rosemary sprig and the bay leaf. The liquid should reach two thirds up the meat and no further. Hold the pot at 190°F to 200°F (88°C to 93°C) for 2 1/2 hours, lid ajar, or in a 300°F (150°C) oven. It is ready when a fork enters with no resistance but the cube holds its shape. Remove the rosemary and bay.

Step 8

Bind the sauce with blended beans. Blend one third of the cooked cannellini, roughly 3/4 cup, with 1/2 cup (120 ml) of the reserved bean water until smooth. Stir it in off the heat, then return to low heat. Within 2 minutes the thin braising liquid turns glossy and coats the back of a spoon. No flour, no roux, no cornstarch.

Step 9

Add the whole beans and rest. Fold in the remaining two thirds gently and simmer very quietly 15 to 20 minutes so they take up the flavour without breaking. Adjust the salt now, at final concentration. Stir in the 2 tablespoons of oil off the heat for gloss, then let the pot stand covered 15 minutes.

Plating

Serve this in warm shallow bowls rather than flat plates: the bowl keeps the sauce where a spoon can reach it, and a cannellino loses its creaminess below body temperature.

Spoon three or four cubes of beef into the centre of each bowl, leaning against each other rather than lying flat, and ladle the sauce around and slightly over them. Place the whole beans deliberately in the sauce so they stay visible: the point is two distinct things in one glossy liquid. Finish with parsley, a pinch of raw chopped rosemary, flaky salt, cracked pepper and a thread of Tuscan oil over the meat. Grilled unsalted bread rubbed with garlic goes beside the bowl, not under the stew.

Professional Technique

The whole technical argument of this recipe is that the cannellino is the thickener, and everything else protects that. A dried bean is largely starch, packed in granules inside its cells. As it cooks, those granules take up water and swell, the cell walls soften, and some of the starch escapes into the water and gelatinises there. That is why bean cooking water goes cloudy and feels slightly viscous between the fingers: a working starch solution made by the ingredient itself, doing the job a roux is added to a stew to do.

The consequence is that the beans cannot be cooked in the stew. Two things in a braising pot attack a bean skin: salt, already in the seasoning and the stock, and acid, from the wine and the tomato. Both act on the pectin and the calcium in the skin and firm it, so beans put into a salted acidic pot sit there for hours with a hard wall and a chalky centre. Worse, a skin that will not soften will not let its starch out either, so the bean fails at its one structural job. Cooking them apart in unsalted water and salting them once tender is the only way to get both.

Blending a third of the beans with their own water and stirring the puree back in turns a thin braise into a sauce without changing what the dish tastes of. Flour brings a dulling, faintly pasty flavour and a matte surface, and mutes the wine. Bean puree brings body, gloss and a sweetness already in the pot, so the sauce tastes more like itself, and it does not break on reheating. Keep two thirds of the beans whole so the bowl reads as beef and beans, not beef in bean soup.

Texture and Moisture Control

The beef texture is a collagen conversion, and it runs on temperature more than on the clock. Chuck and shin are full of connective tissue, and collagen begins turning to gelatin from around 160°F (71°C), slowly, over hours. Held at 190°F to 200°F (88°C to 93°C) the tissue dissolves while the muscle fibres stay relaxed, and the gelatin goes into the braising liquid, where it gives a silkiness nothing else imitates. Pushed to a boil, those fibres contract and squeeze out their water, leaving dry meat in a greasy liquid.

Cube size belongs to the same calculation. At 1 1/2 inches the cubes survive two and a half hours with their shape and enough interior to stay moist; cut to an inch they shred and the distinction between meat and sauce disappears. Lift them with a spoon rather than a fork: every puncture is an exit for juice and gelatin.

The beans have the opposite problem: soft enough to be creamy, firm enough to stay whole. Judge them by squashing one against the roof of the mouth, because a cannellino can look intact and still be chalky inside. Final consistency is a matter of ratio, not reduction: never boil this stew down, because the beans break and the meat dries. Too thin, blend in more beans; too thick, let it down with the bean water.

Professional Mise en Place

Two pots and one long unattended stretch make this easy to organise: everything except the final binding can be done a day ahead.

Equipment and tools

Heavy casserole with a lid, wide enough to brown in a single layer
Separate saucepan for the beans, tall rather than wide
Blender or immersion blender for the bean puree
Slotted spoon, fine sieve and a jug for the bean water

Prepared ahead

Beans cooked, salted at the end and cooled in their liquid, up to 2 days ahead
Bean cooking water strained into its own sealed jar, never discarded
Soffritto diced fine and even, up to 1 day ahead
The braise completed through Step 7 a day ahead and refrigerated

Service setup

Braise warming gently, rosemary and bay already removed
Bean puree blended in a small jug, reserved bean water beside it
Whole beans at room temperature so they do not chill the pot
Bowls warming, bread on the grill, herbs chopped late
Finishing oil, flaky salt and a pepper mill

Chef Tips

Buy the beans somewhere with turnover and check the harvest year if it is printed. A dried bean does not spoil but it does age, and beans three or four years old will not soften however long you simmer them. This is the commonest reason a pot of cannellini stays chalky.

Cook the beans a day ahead. They improve overnight in their own liquid and the salt distributes properly. Store them submerged: you need the liquid more than any individual bean.

Never chop the rosemary into the pot. A whole branch perfumes the braise and comes out cleanly, while chopped needles turn resinous over two and a half hours and cannot be removed. The raw pinch at the plate is a different thing, bright and green.

Make it the day before you want to eat it. Cool it fast, refrigerate, lift off the set fat, rewarm slowly, and only then bind with the beans, which gives a gloss reheating never recovers.

Common Mistakes

Cooking the beans in the stew. The mistake that defines the dish. Salt and acid both toughen bean skins, so beans added raw to the braise stay hard outside and chalky inside and never release their starch.

Throwing away the bean cooking water. That cloudy liquid is the thickener for the whole recipe and nothing replaces it. Use half a cup for the puree and hold the rest back to adjust the consistency.

Using canned beans. They arrive already salted and cooked, they break apart when folded into a hot braise, and they come with no usable cooking liquid. The brine in the can thickens nothing.

Crowding the pan when browning. Too many cubes at once drops the pan temperature, the meat steams grey instead of browning, and no fond forms.

Boiling the braise. A rolling boil contracts the muscle fibres and emulsifies the rendered fat into the liquid: tough meat, greasy sauce. Hold it where a bubble surfaces every few seconds.

Wine Pairing

Chianti Rufina DOCG: The coolest and highest of the Chianti subzones, east of Florence towards the Apennine passes. Rufina Sangiovese keeps a nervous acidity and a savoury, almost iron like edge that warmer zones lose, and that acidity cuts the gelatin and the bean starch coating the palate. Its tannin is fine rather than grippy.

Carmignano DOCG: A tiny appellation west of Florence where Cabernet has legally been blended into Sangiovese since the eighteenth century. That fraction of Cabernet brings a firmer tannic frame and a leafy herbal note that finds the rosemary directly, and the structure for a sauce that has come out dark and deeply savoury.

Rosso di Montalcino DOC: Sangiovese from the Montalcino hills released young, and a better match for a stew than its senior sibling: less oak, less tannin to resolve, more fruit available now. Warm red cherry and dried herb aromatics sit beside the rosemary, and there is enough mid palate flesh for the creamy texture of the beans.

Vino Nobile di Montepulciano DOCG: From the Val di Chiana, Chianina country, the same landscape this dish came out of. Prugnolo Gentile gives a rounder, plummier wine with more glycerol weight, and that softness is useful once the beans have made the sauce rich. Plenty of acid remains underneath, and the bitter almond finish keeps it from cloying.

Cesanese del Piglio DOCG: A step outside Tuscany into the Lazio hills, for something less obvious. Cesanese is medium bodied with modest tannin, dark spicy fruit and a peppery, faintly balsamic lift that works unexpectedly well against rosemary and slow cooked beef, and its lighter frame refreshes between spoonfuls.

Storage & Reheating

This genuinely improves in the refrigerator, and the best version is made one day and eaten the next. Cool the pot quickly in a sink of cold water, then refrigerate covered for up to 4 days. The fat sets on top as a firm pale disc that seals the stew and lifts off cleanly. If you are keeping it, stop at the end of Step 7 and bind fresh on the day.

Keep the reserved bean water in its own sealed jar for up to 3 days: it is the only liquid that thins the sauce without diluting its flavour. Reheat covered over the lowest heat or in a 300°F (150°C) oven, adding bean water a spoonful at a time until the sauce coats a spoon again. Never bring it back to a boil, which breaks the beans and dries the beef. It freezes for 3 months, though the beans soften, so freeze the braise before the beans go in.

Nutrition

Per serving, based on 4 generous portions:

Calories: 690 kcal
Total Fat: 32 g
Saturated Fat: 9 g
Trans Fat: 0 g
Unsaturated Fat: 21 g
Cholesterol: 150 mg
Sodium: 690 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 40 g
Fiber: 12 g
Total Sugars: 6 g
Added Sugars: 0 g
Protein: 58 g
Lactose: 0 g
Principal micronutrients: iron, zinc, vitamin B12, potassium, folate, magnesium, phosphorus