Malta: Braġjoli / Bragioli (Savory Stuffed Beef Rolls Braised in Wine)

This straightforward but very tasty dish often has a seemingly weird name inflicted on it by those from English-speaking countries: "beef olives." But, though there are no olives in bragioli, the phrase still makes sense.

The word olive started to be used for any slice of meat rolled up around a stuffing as far back as 1598, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. There was even a verb form -- to "olive" something meant to roll it up this way. Unfortunately the OED gives no hints as to where the phrase might originally have come from. The rolled up slices of meat must have looked like stuffed olives to a fair number of people. (Though plainly not all, as another name for this kind of preparation is "veal birds", possibly related to the French oiseaux sans têtes or alouettes sans têtes, "headless birds" or "larks without heads". By comparison, maybe "beef olives" isn't so bad after all.)

Anyway: back to the bragioli. (And if some Maltese-speaking reader would like to tell us what bragioli actually means, we would be very grateful.) The basic, classic version of the recipe involves a stuffing made with bread -- ideally the typical Maltese bread Ħobż Malti -- as well as bacon, garlic, parsley, and sometimes wedges of hardboiled egg -- all stuffed inside good quality beefsteaks pounded thin. The bragioli are then garnished with sautéed onions, carrot and bay leaves, and slowly braised in a robust local red wine.

Click "read more" for the recipe.

Basic braġjoli:

• 1 kilogram / 2.2 pounds of topside of beef, cut into 12 thin slices

• 2 onions
• 1 carrot
• 5 slices of crustless white bread, stale
• 3 sliced hardboiled eggs
• 6 rashers / slices of bacon
• Bunch of parsley, chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 2 bay leaves
• Salt and reshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 to 1 glass red wine for braising

Beat each slice of meat flat with a kitchen mallet or fleischklobber and spread them out on your work surface. Grind the bread to crumbs. Prepare a stuffing by mixing the crumbs with the chopped bacon, garlic, parsley and seasoning. (Not the bay leaves; those come in later.) Heap a tablespoon or two of the stuffing onto each beef slice, and top with a slice or segment of hard boiled egg.

Roll the meat slices lengthwise over the stuffing, and tie up with thread, or fasten together with wooden toothpicks.

Pour some oil or melt some lard in a large pan, and brown the beef olives all over in this, together with the bay leaves. Transfer the browned bragoli to a casserole. In the same oil or fat, dry the sliced onion and carrot. Pour the wine over the frying onions, let it bubble, and then pour this sauce over the bragioli in the casserole. Stew very gently for 1 1/2 hours. (You may have to add a little more wine, stock or water to top up the braising liquid, but don't add too much: otherwise the bragioli will not braise correctly.

When the bragioli are ready, remove the thread or toothpicks and serve with peas and mashed potatoes, spooning the sauce over.

A note for cooks who are lucky enough to be able to obtain caul (also known as caul fat, and carried by some specialty butchers): you might want to try using this recipe to make bragolun, which is one big beef roll, rather than many small ones. Use the same 1 kilo of topside, but beat the single piece of meat out into one large slice: then spread the stuffing mixture on it, roll up, wrap in a large piece of caul, and tie up with string. Brown and make the sauce as in the directions above. When cooked, remove the string and cut into thick slices before serving.

(This is one of a sequence of Maltese recipes posted to celebrate Malta's annual Freedom Day. You might like to check the other recipes out as well.)

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