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Pot Roast Larded
(Arrosto morto lardellato) Take a piece short and thick of beef or veal, quite tender and weighing about two pounds or a little more . Lard it with ham or bacon cut in little pieces. Tie with a string and put it in a stewpan with a piece of butter, one fourth of a middle-sized onion cut in two pieces, three or four ribs of celery half an inch thick and as many slices of carrot. Season with salt and pepper and when the meat begins to brown-turning it oftenpour over one cup of water and complete the cooking on a low fire, leaving it to absorb great part of the gravy. See, however, that it doesn't doesn't dry up and become black. When you to the table strain the juice that has remained and pour it on the meat, that may be surrounded with potatoes cut in pieces or kept whole if small, previously browned in butter or oil. 137
A plain stovetop braise of the kind Italian cooks call arrosto morto — a "dead roast," meaning one cooked in a covered pan rather than before a fire. The whole point is a slow reduction, so the pan and the heat matter more than the timings.
- The hinge: reduce, don't stewThe meat should absorb most of its liquid and finish in a small quantity of concentrated glaze, not swim in broth. Add the cup of water only after the meat has taken real colour, and check every 20 minutes or so; a splash more water is fine, a flooded pan is not.
- Cut of meat"Short and thick" and "quite tender" is a mismatch by modern shopping habits — a tender cut will dry out over an hour of braising. Chuck, brisket point or veal shoulder, tied into a compact roll of about 2 lb, gives the right result.
- LardingLarding means threading strips of fat through the interior of the meat, traditionally with a larding needle. A boning knife works: pierce with the grain and push in batons of pancetta, salt pork or fatty prosciutto end about 1/4 inch square. Failing that, bard the outside by tying sheets of pancetta or bacon around the roll.
- "Stewpan"A heavy lidded pot barely wider than the meat — a small Dutch oven. In too large a pan the liquid evaporates before the meat is done.
- Butter and browningButter alone will brown before the meat does. Use butter with a spoonful of oil, or brown in oil and add the butter with the vegetables.
- TimingNone is given. Reckon on 1 1/2 to 2 hours at a bare simmer for a 2 lb piece of chuck or veal shoulder, covered, turning it every 20 minutes. It is done when a skewer meets no resistance.
- Straining the juiceThe vegetables have given everything up by this point and are meant to be discarded, not served. Press the strained sauce through a sieve for body, and skim the fat if there is much of it.
- YieldTwo pounds of boneless meat serves four, or three generously, with the potatoes.
Arrosto morto is one of the standard formulas of nineteenth-century Italian domestic cooking, and the wording here is close to Pellegrino Artusi's treatment of the dish in La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiar bene (first published 1891), though a direct line of descent cannot be demonstrated from this page alone; Artusi circulated very widely, and recipes of this type turn up, translated and unattributed, in the English-language Italian cookbooks published for American readers in the early twentieth century. The name distinguishes the dish from a true roast turned before the fire: the meat is browned and finished in a closed pan on the hearth or range, a method suited to small kitchens and modest cuts. The larding is the part that has fallen away — threading fat through a lean cut was ordinary insurance against a dry roast, and larding needles were common kitchen equipment. The aromatic combination of onion, celery and carrot, cooked to exhaustion and then strained out, follows the same logic as the Italian soffritto.