Braciole, Take Two: this time it's spelled correctly.

1/2 cup bread crumbs
1 egg
2-4 slices of prosciutto
3/4-1 pound of flank steak or top round, cut or pounded 3/4 inch thick
2-3 slices of provolone
2-3 slices of mozzarella
1-2 cloves of minced or mashed garlic (roasted garlic would be best)
2-3 tbls chopped onion
7-8 fresh basil leaves
salt and pepper
2-3 cups tomato sauce

Mix together the garlic, breadcrumbs, some pepper and the egg. Spread the egg mixture on the beef. Layer the prosciutto, cheeses, basil and onion on top. Roll it like a jelly roll and tie it with cooking twine in several places. Brown it on all sides then simmer it in the tomato sauce for 1 1/2 - 2 hours. Serve over pasta.

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Some of you might remember the last time I tried to make braciole. It didn't work out too well. But, I've learned a couple things since then. One, it's spelled braciole. Two, you can buy the beef already prepped at the grocery store. These are both very good things to know. So armed with this knowledge, I make my second attempt. And learned a few more things. But the results this time were much more like my ultimate goal. Here is what I did.

This is the beef: A sheet of top round about 3/4 of an inch thick. I can buy it at the grocery store near me, it's labeled "for braciole". I've talked to a couple people who don't have it cut like this in their area. You can always pound out a flank steak or something, if you can't get it. Here is what I'm stuffing it with: prosciutto, provolone, mozzarella, onion, fresh basil, garlic, breadcrumbs and egg. First I mixed the breadcrumbs, egg and garlic together. When I made tomato sauce last night I dropped a couple extra cloves of garlic in to poach. I pulled them out when they were soft and mashed them into a paste when I mixed them into the crumbs. I like doing it like that because it mellows out the garlic and makes it easy to incorporate into stuff. I spread the crumb mixture on the beef. In the end there turned out to be a pretty thick layer of egg and crumbs. I thought it was good, but you can use less if you don't want it like that. Then I layered on the prosciutto, cheeses, basil and onion. Then I rolled it and tied it up. I'm afraid I don't have any pictures of the tying, but it took two hands and I'm not touching the camera with raw beef hands. This turned out stuffed pretty full, most of the cheese wound up oozing out into the sauce. Which made the sauce even better, fortunately. Heh. Now I just browned it, poured in the sauce and let it simmer covered for about an hour and a half, turning it every once in a while. And then I ate it over some pasta. Next time I think I will chop up the cheese and prosciutto and onion and mix them into the egg/crumb mixture. Maybe not the cheese. Having it melt into the sauce, bringing some of the prosciutto and basil flavors with it was quite nice.