The Italian name for beef stew with red wine is “spezzatino” o “stufato”, which comes from the name “stufa”, the wood burning cook stove that many in the north of Italy still have in their house. The winter is actually pretty tough in the north, so the wood burning stove is something very common to have in the house. My grandparents have the coziest one in their kitchen and trust me, there is nothing better than waking up while is snowing outside and get warm near the stufa. I can’t wait to do that on Christmas!!
Anyways, going back to the name of this dish. This slow cooked beef stew used to be cooked over the wood burning stove, “stufa”, from which it took the name “stufato”.
Now, I don’t know how many people own a wood burning cook stove in Tel Aviv, since we are 15 days into October and there still 28+ degrees outside, but I just guess: no one. So don’t worry. You don’t really need one of those to cook this Italian stufato properly, but you will need time! Yes, This is not a recipe you can make at the last second. The secret to make stew meat tender is slow cooking it, so don’t rush it. If you only have one hour to come up with something for dinner, this is not the right direction you wanna take. I would recommend, in fact, to prepare this beef stew with red wine the day before serving it, since its taste gets better the longer it sits.
Beef Stew with Red Wine Ingredients
- Choose the beef: I recommend to choose a cut of meat that has the right amount of “fat”, which means that your beef should be marbled with white veins. The chuck is a good cut for this recipe. On the contrary, if you choose a cut that is too lean, your beef stew won’t be as tender.
- Onions: I prefer them to garlic in this recipe, because it makes the dish a little bit less heavy
- Red wine: I usually keep leftovers of white and red wine in the fridge for this recipes. But, if you don’t have any wine leftovers, just buy a bottle of dry not expensive red wine.
- Herbs: I am a rosemary lover! Especially when there is meat involved, but in this specific recipe I didn’t add it, I must have forgotten. I recommend you choose your favorite combinations of fresh herbs.
Beef Stew with Red Wine
Cuisine: ItalianDifficulty: Easy4
servings10
minutes3
hoursIngredients
Meat 1.5 kg (chuck,) cut into medium cubes
1 Medium Onion, chopped
50ml Extra-virgin olive oil
150/200ml Red Wine
Flour as much as needed to coat the beef cubes
500ml Water or broth
Rosmary
Salt and pepper
Directions
- In a large non-stick pot sauté onion with Extra-virgin olive oil for 3 minutes.
- On the side, coat the meat cubes with flour. Add the meat to the sauté, turn up the heat and let the beef brown on every side,. Keep stirring to avoid burning
- Add wine and after the alcohol evaporated completely (about 3 minutes) add water or broth, salt and paper and your favorite herbs. Cover with the lid and turn down the heat.
- Slow cook the beef stew with red wine for about 3h until fork-tender.
Notes
- I recommend to prepare the beef stew with red wine a day ahead, to let the meat rest and get even more tender
What to serve with Beef Stew
I cannot think of a better combination for this beef stew than puré (mashed potatoes). When you have such a sauce you need something that helps you grasp every drops of sauce. My motto is none drops left behind!
If you don’t love puré that much and you are more of a bread person, you can always opt for “scarpetta”. Scarpetta, means little shoe, and it’s really funny that we actually have a word for this, but it’s simply the action of cleaning your plate with bread. Again, no drops left behind! Once you get this, everything will come natural to you with all this bizzarre Italian food talks!
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