Somewhere there is a photograph of my mum clinging to a large terracotta pot. When the picture was taken she was in on the joke. A few hours earlier, however, as she tore open the letter from Customs and Excise, noting that she had illegally brought a Tuscan pot into the UK and that it would be confiscated if she didn’t pay duty, she wasn’t laughing. My dad found it hilarious that she failed to notice that the badly typed letter, complete with Tippex and postmark from his office, was all my handiwork. We let her worry her way through her tea and toast before telling her the truth.
We are not talking some fancy or ancient pot. This was just one of the countless handsome but relatively ordinary terracotta containers that are made and sold around a town called Impruneta, about 15 miles outside Florence. We had been on holiday – our only family trip to Italy – and along with wine and dozens of Botticelli postcards, my mum bought this 5ft tall, goodness-knows-how-heavy pot, which we drove back across France to Harpenden, Hertfordshire. Hence the letter, which I found amusing for years.
Practical jokes aside, Impruneta is famous for terracotta. In her fine book about Florentine food, Emiko Davies explains that this was where, in the 1400s, the Renaissance architect Filippo Brunelleschi sought out the burnt-red roof tiles for the duomo. Apparently, while he was overseeing their production and firing, he would eat peposo, a stew of beef, wine and pepper cooked in a terracotta dish in the mouth of one of the huge kilns. It’s a good story that, like so many good stories, true or not so true, weaves a dish into the fabric of a particular place and time. Peposo balances frugality and liberality, bringing ingredients together in a simple and satisfying way. It is just the thing for these wintry days.
You come across lots of versions and interpretations of this dish, some that begin with a soffritto, others that include root vegetables, many that are rusty red with tomato. The classic version, however, is pared down and essential. Just six ingredients – beef, olive oil, wine, garlic, salt, pepper. Add to this, heat and time – at least two hours at the sort of simmer that has you peering under the pan to check the flame hasn’t gone out. Like the beans last week, there is everyday alchemy at work here, the slow cooking allowing the wine to seep into the meat, rendering it tender and really dark, the garlic simmering into sweetness and then dissolving. Then there is the pepper – lots of it – which seasons the meat and deepens the flavour of the sauce, providing throat-warming heat and spice. It isn’t as fiery as you would imagine, despite the possibly alarming-sounding amount. The wine and beef tame it slightly. In fact, I often end up adding more pepper at the end, especially if I am serving the peposo with mashed potato, which is as traditional as serving it with a bag of crisps. In Tuscany it is accompanied by local unsalted bread.
In my experience, peposo is – like so many stews and braises – improved infinitely by resting it for at least a few hours or, better still, overnight. In another, slightly more organised world, this would be something I made on a Thursday, so that on Friday or Saturday all I’d have to do was warm it, make some extremely buttery mash and open another bottle of wine.
Peposo beef and pepper stew
Adapted from Emiko Davies’s recipe in her book Florentine.
Serves 4
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1kg stewing or braising beef – chuck, flank or neck, cut into large chunks of about 5cm
3 garlic cloves, peeled but whole
1 bottle red wine, ideally chianti
Salt
1 tbsp whole black peppercorns, plus a few extra just in case
To serve
Bread or buttery mashed potato
1 Warm the olive oil in a heavy-based casserole or stockpot, then brown the meat in batches over a medium heat. Return all the meat to the pan, add the peeled but whole garlic cloves, the red wine and a pinch of salt. Use a pestle and mortar to pound the peppercorns until fine, then add that to the pan.
2 Bring the pan almost to a boil, then cover and reduce to a simmer for 2-2½ hours or until the meat is very tender but still holding its shape. If you like, remove the lid for the last 45 minutes to reduce the sauce. If you want it reduced further, remove the meat and boil the sauce until slightly thickened, then return the meat to the pan.
3 Taste and add more salt and pepper if needed. Ideally allow to rest for a few hours – better still, overnight – then reheat gently.
Rachel Roddy is a food writer based in Rome, the author of Five Quarters: Recipes and Notes from a Kitchen in Rome (Saltyard) and winner of the André Simon food book awardS
