Aosta Valley Carbonade Recipe – Traditional Italian Beef Stew

Val d’Aosta is a tiny region nestled among the Italian Alps in the northwest corner of Italy, at the intersection of France, Switzerland and Italy. It is the smallest and least populous region of Italy, and French is one of its official languages, along with the Italian. The region is known for its rustic, hearty cooking with clear Gallic influences, and this rich beef and red wine stew is certainly no exception. Aosta Valley carbonade may sound like many other red wine beef stews, but its liberal use of butter, herbs and spices lends it a special mellow but intriguing flavor well worth trying out. Originally made from beef preserved in salt, today you can pre-salt the beef for a truly authentic experience (see Notes) or simply season the dish generously for an ersatz but still very acceptable updated version.

This carbonade Aosta Valley is quite different in taste from its much more famous beer-braised Flemish cousin, which we featured some time ago. Both, in my book, are equally delicious.

Ingredients

Serves 4-6

• 1 kilo (2 lbs) steak beef, cut into cubes or strips
• Flour
• 1 large onion, finely minced
• 50g (2 oz) butter, plus a drizzle of vegetable oil
• Salt and pepper
• Red wine
• A variety of aromatic herbs and spices of your choice (see Notes)

Directions

Cut the beef either into cubes or large strips, as you prefer. Lightly flour the cubes or strips and brown them in the butter in a large braising pan until golden brown on all sides. The flame should be lively, but be careful to adjust the temperature so the butter doesn’t burn. (A drizzle of vegetable oil helps to this end, even if it’s not traditional.) Make sure the pieces are well-spaced so they brown nicely; proceed in batches if you need to. Remove the pieces from the pan as they’re done.

Add the onion to the pan and sauté gently until the onion is soft and translucent, seasoning with salt and pepper as you go. Add back the beef and turn everything together, seasoning again. Let the beef and onions simmer together for a few minutes, then add enough red wine to barely cover the beef. Nestle the herbs and spices in the pot among the beef pieces.

Cover and let the pot simmer very gently until the beef is perfectly tender, about 1-1/2 to 2 hours, depending on the quality of beef and the size of your pieces. Be sure to stir from time to time, as the sauce tends to stick to the bottom of the pot. Add more wine or water if needed to keep things moist and loose, but let the sauce reduce towards the end.

Serves piping hot over freshly made polenta.

Notes on Aosta Valley Carbonade

To give your Aosta Valley carbonade that real old-fashioned flavor, sprinkle the meat with a dry marinade of salt and aromatic herbs and spices, place in a covered bowl and let rest in the fridge for a day or more before cooking. Otherwise, be generous, especially with the salt, when you season yours carbonade. The herbs and spices are “at will“—whatever you fancy—but typical and very nice option would be a cinnamon stick, a few cloves, a generous scrape of nutmeg, freshly grated pepper, a bay leaf, a sprig or two of thyme and a few sage leaves. Some recipes for Aosta Valley carbonade call for a lean cut of steak beef (in the US, this would be something like the rump or round) but I much prefer chuck (ie, the shoulder) which has lovely marbling that keeps the meat nice and moist and falling apart tender when it is cooked.

According to Regional Italian recipes (Solares), Aosta Valley carbonade has many local variations: in some villages the meat is cut into cubes, while in others it is cut into slices, still others into strips. Some places use beer as in the Belgian version of this dish, while some places add broth and/or a pinch of sugar.

By the way, carbonade goes by many similar names and spellings. It is also spelled carbonnade and sometimes called carbonada or carbonated.

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