Pašticada - Dalmation beef (in this case lamb) braised in wine with sweet prunes
Serves 4-6, or 2 for the week!
This recipe is a labor of love, it takes 24 hours to make, including marinating, and slow cooking. Do it on a cold weekend when you have nowhere to go ;). This is a deeply rich, flavorful dish with a wonderful caramel-y sweetness from the balsamic, wine and prunes, along with the slow cooked vegetables. The sauce will have you licking your plate and going back for more to soak up with your bread!
Ingredients
2-3 lbs boned lamb leg (sub with beef chuck for the pure recipe)
3-4 sticks rosemary
Prosciutto 5-6 slices (0.5 w oz)
8 garlic cloves, peeled and quartered
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar glaze
3 cups sweet white wine Prošek/or a sweet white wine like Muscat
2 cups sweet red wine (I keep a box in the fridge handy for cooking)
7 oz celery root (can sub for regular celery)
One white onion
4 medium carrots
10 oz prunes (no stones)
10 cloves
1 teaspoon beef stock base, melted in 1 cup of water
small (6oz) can of tomato paste
2 tablespoons flour/cornstarch
Oven fries/gnocchi as a side, prepared to packet directions
Directions
Prepare and marinate the meat the night before: Poke holes all over your piece of meat, and poke bits of garlic, rosemary and prosciutto all up in that thing! this adds tons of flavor so that every bite is an explosion of either one of those three flavors, not a homogeneous “stew” flavor.
Pour over both wines and the balsamic glaze and swoosh around a little so the glaze dissolves. I just did this straight into my le creuset casserole dish. Cover and let marinate overnight in the refrigerator.
Prepare the rest of the ingredients: Wash carrots and celery root. Don’t peel the carrots (good nutrients in there) - but do peel the celery root, it can be a little sandy in the crevices. cut your celery/celery root, carrots and onions into small bite sized pieces, no need to be too perfect.
Add the veg, prunes, cloves, tomato paste and pepper to the pot.
Melt the beef stock base and tomato paste into the water and pour over. Gently mix everything together and if necessary, top off with water till the meat is just covered.
Cook in a 210 degrees Fahrenheit (100 Celsius) oven for 5 hours - 4 hours with the lid on and the last hour with the lid off.
Take out the meat and pick out all of the twigs of rosemary and discard.
Add the flour to the hot liquid and puree all the sauce with a stick blender until you reach a consistency that looks good to you (I like smooth for this recipe). This is also a good time to prepare whatever you will be serving with it - fries/gnocchi.
Put your pot on the stove and cook over a medium heat for 5-10 mins til the flour is cooked and the sauce thickens.
To finish
Return the meat to the dish and ladle liberally over your side of choice. top with some chopped parsley for a splash of colour if you are doing this for a dinner party.