Braised Beef and Black Cabbage Ravioli

There is a lot of controversy over wine, but a good wine adds flavor to food even during cooking. And braised meat is perfect for cooking in wine. In fact, it is meat that is cooked slowly in a little cooking liquid, made up of wine or broth flavored with spices.

The name of the cooking comes from its slowness: once the meat was left to cook overnight on the ‘embers’ (braci in Piedmont dialect and then brasato) of the fireplace.

Recipe for braised beef and black cabbage ravioli

Let's prepare the ravioli starting from cooking the meat, we will make a braised meat cooked in classic Chianti and black cabbage.

Let's take our piece of meat, remove any skin and start browning it in a pan with a little oil on all sides, creating a Maillard effect, which Masterchef recently brought to the fore.

Browning the meat is used to create a crust that traps the meat's liquids inside and makes them the protagonists of the subsequent cooking. Chef Bruno Barbieri's judgment is not needed for the Maillard crust, but I assure you that a good Maillard reaction is essential for the final taste of the braised meat.

At this point we add finely chopped celery, carrots and onion and let it flavour. We add salt and a little pepper, then we add a good Chianti and add the black cabbage leaves that we have previously washed and removed the central part.

We cover and let it cook on low heat for a couple of hours, and if necessary, add some broth.

In the meantime, we prepare the pasta to make the ravioli. When the meat and cabbage are cooked and cooled, we chop them roughly without using blenders, so we will have a rougher filling for the ravioli but more pleasant to the bite.

We make the ravioli and cook them in water that must not boil too strongly to prevent them from opening.

We will season them with a hazelnut butter that we will pour over the ravioli on the plate sprinkled with a seasoned pecorino with walnut leaves and a sprinkling of black pepper. In the glass we will pour an excellent Chianti riserva wine, and if you love yourself, it will be the same glass in which you cooked the braised meat.