Braised Beef with Mushroom Tortellini

Braised Beef Tortellini was a Happy Accident

This is going to be a little bit different than some of my other recipes. I developed this recipe for Braised Beef Tortellini on vacation and it turned out to be a bit of a happy accident. We were staying at our family condo in Florida, and I had ordered groceries to pick up for our stay. Originally I had meal planned for steaks, but the grocery was out of the ones I’d ordered and substituted a chuck roast instead. I really had not planned to do a roast while on vacation and with the other groceries I’d ordered I didn’t really have the ingredients for a roast in the traditional sense.

But here I was and so I decided to make the best of it. Sometimes when developing a recipe going down an unexpected path can bring you to a place of inspiration. Here is the path I took…

Locals Always Know the Best Place to Find Ingredients

After a rocky start to our travels, our original flight was canceled and we ended up arriving 5 hours later than we expected, we finally made it to the Tampa airport. We had a darling clerk at the rental car place that gave us a tip about an Italian market she liked in town.

I love getting tips from locals, they know the best places. A couple years ago while in California we struck up a conversation with some locals we met in a park, and they recommended a coffee shop not too far from where we were staying. It was amazing! They had a blackberry latte, which was out of this world and a hearty delicious breakfast. The owner, and chef was from Poland if I remember correctly and was just lovely.

But I digress. We decided to investigate the Italian market that our rental clerk mentioned and were very excited to try it out.

Italian Market Bliss

It was this bustling little place tucked into a neighborhood in St Petersburg. This market is called Mazarro’s and I highly recommend. It was in an older building that has been divided into a bunch of different stalls. Upon entering you see the checkout lines, produce section, and deli.

Farther along in this first room are some fridge and freezer cases with little packages of delicious looking olives and other appetizer-ish items and some dairy products including large bags of cannoli cream which made me very excited. I’ll talk about the cannoli more later. Fun fact cannoli is the plural term for more than 1 cannolo, cannolo being the singular form of the word.

Wine Room Revelation

Off to the left is a tiny alcove full of a myriad of spices across from which is the wine and cheese room. Yes, a whole a room just for wine and cheese and they do tastings as well. We chose some asiago cheese and a couple of bottles of wine. A Merlot and Chianti, both Italian because we were in an Italian market after all. While in the wine room I was struck with the idea of braised beef tortellini, one of my husband’s favorites. Needless to say, he was quite excited at the prospect and thought our wine choices would suit the dish perfectly.

It Was People-y

We proceeded onward into the really exciting part of the market. I’m not even sure what to call this part, maybe the grocery/hot food/dessert section, anyway, this area was packed with people. There was a counter to the right full of elegantly decorated cakes and sumptuous looking desserts. That’s where the cannoli were, oh the cannoli, more on them later.

In the center of the room were shelves full of imported dry goods, snacks, cookies, dry pasta, more things than I can recall. Over to the left was another counter with many people waiting for hot lunches and prepared goods. All of it looked so delicious and I was overwhelmed with the extensive selection. We rounded a corner to some more fridge and freezer cases.

Handmade pasta!!!!! Oh my, I was geeking out! We hit the jackpot. I had to wait in a short line to view the case. They had everything from stuffed pastas to noodles and sauce. I decided on porcini stuffed tortellini, as they would make a nice substitute for not having mushrooms, which are traditional in braised beef with tortellini. We had to hold ourselves back from just buying all the things.

We Went Back for Cannoli!

Guess what? We went back for the cannoli and oh mama they were so worth it. We chose the original and a pistachio flavors. Rich creamy and sweet with a hint of cinnamon in the cookie, little chocolate chips in the filling, amazing!

We had cannoli in Chicago a few years that were awesome too but they paled in comparison to these beauties.

On our way out we decided on a couple more things, a box of feta stuffed olives, a packet of bread dipping herbs, and a margarita pizza for lunch, naturally. Everything was awesome! Please go there if you have the chance and always ask locals what places they recommend, you won’t be disappointed.

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The Reason We’re Here – Braised Beef Tortellini Recipe Notes

So now to the recipe. Since I was working with what I had on hand, you’ll notice this is probably different from other recipes you might find for this dish. This truly was an experiment but it is such a wonderful thing when you can make something delicious even when you don’t have all the ingredients called for in a recipe. Always keep that in mind, recipes are a guideline not a set of rules. Things typically turn out just fine even when you don’t have (or don’t like) everything on the ingredients list.

As I mentioned before I had a chuck roast that was a little over 2lbs. Typically, this recipe would call for short ribs, which are also delicious, but the roast worked out just fine. I began by patting it dry with paper towels and then generously salt and peppering it. I chose not to tie the roast, this is something you can do to prevent the roast from falling apart. I didn’t feel like that would be an issue, and I didn’t have those supplies anyway.

Use the Ingredients You Have on Hand

I would’ve used my Dutch oven or large enamel cast iron pan if were home but the pan I had access to was a 10 inch skillet with deep walls and a lid. Having a lid is important to the braising process. I melted 1 Tbl butter with about 1 tsp olive oil and seared the roast over medium high heat for about 2-3 minutes on each side. I didn’t want to cook the meet too much, just develop the color and crust on the outside. Color equals flavor. Once seared on both sides, remove the meat from the pan and set aside on a plate.

Vegetables for this dish were a little bit of a challenge. In retrospect I could’ve supplemented the veg I had by purchasing more at the Italian market, but I didn’t think of it at the time. And I was looking forward to the challenge of making the dish without traditional ingredients. I had onion, garlic, baby carrots and a small can of tomato sauce.

I chopped the onion into a medium dice and minced the garlic. In the same pan where I browned the meat  added 1 tsp olive oil to the pan and lowered to medium heat. I threw in the onions and sauted for 5-8 minutes until softened.

If you are using mushrooms in this recipe add them in 2-ish minutes after the onions and cook them until the liquid has evaporated and they start brown. Stir in the garlic and cook for about 30 second until fragrant.

To prepare the carrots I chopped them in half with a diagonal cut. Cutting them on the diagonal doesn’t really change the way the cook but I like the way it looks and it allowed me to get fairly evenly sized pieces out of the irregular sizes and shapes. After the onions are softened, add the carrots and saute for another 2-3 minutes.

A Note About the Wine…

I chose a chianti for this dish. Traditionally a Marsala is used but neither my husband or wanted to drink a marsala with this dinner and didn’t want to buy a whole bottle and let the rest go to waste. The Chianti really worked well in contrast against the fattiness of the chuck roast and richness of the mushroom pasta.

I’m not well versed in wine pairings, but I know what I like, and sometimes more importantly what I don’t like, and I liked very much how this wine paired with the other ingredients. Add the wine to the veggies, increase the heat and let boil for 3 minutes to cook off the alcohol.

I had added chicken bone broth to our grocery order thinking I could make a quick pan sauce for a chicken meal that I’d planned. I decided instead to use the bone broth for this dish and made other plans for the chicken. I also found some beef bouillon in the cabinet that was well within it’s use by date and added that in after the sauce had simmered for a bit. I added 2 cubes and that was just the right amount. Add the chicken broth to the pan and bring to a boil.

Let’s talk about the tomato sauce. Again, this is a non-traditional ingredient but it’s what I had on hand. Usually this would be made with canned diced tomatoes (if I were home I would through in a couple of my frozen tomatoes from the garden).

I had meal planned for tortilla pizzas as an easy vacation meal and was going to use the tomato sauce to make pizza sauce. Because I still wanted to do pizzas I used about 2/3 of the 8 oz can. I would use the whole can if I did this recipe the same way again. More tomato coming through in the sauce would have been nice.

Braise and Baste the Beef

Once all the liquids were added I reduced the heat and let them simmer for about 5 minutes. Then I added the browned roast and it’s juices to the pan. I covered and set the timer for 3 hours. When braising meat, you can baste it every once in a while so the meat that is out of the liquid stays moist. I decided to baste every 30 minutes spooning the sauce over top of the roast.

I also tasted the sauce a couple times during the simmering and adjusted the salt and pepper (and added bouillon like I mentioned before). Tasting your dish as it cooks is always a good idea. You can adjust seasoning or add ingredients as needed for maximum flavor.

Speaking of seasoning, I found some dried thyme and rosemary in the spice rack so I added a few pinches of each to the sauce for an herby note.

Once the 3 hours were up, I tested the meat for doneness. I poked it with a fork and the meat was very tender and did not stick to the fork. At this point I removed the pot from the heat and let it cool completely. I cooked this on a day that we were not going to eat it for dinner. So, after it cooled completely I put in a glass container and stored it in the fridge overnight. You don’t have to do this, obviously, but know that this is an option to prepare the meal ahead.

Make Ahead and Save for Later

On the day we were going to eat this meal, I pulled it out of the fridge and let it warm a little on the counter, about 20 minutes. There will be a solidified layer on the top after being refrigerated. This can be removed completely or partially if you wish, but this layer contains collagen which will give the sauce texture and has fat that adds a lot to the flavor. It will melt into the sauce when heated.

While the dish sat at room temperature, I prepared a large pot of salted water to come to a boil on the stove for the pasta. Then I scooped the beef out of the container onto a cutting board. I put the sauce and veggies into a large pan and brought it to a simmer over medium heat. While the veg and sauce hung out, I chopped up the roast into 2-inch chunks and added it to the sauce. The sauce simmer for about 10-15 minutes which allowed it to reduce a bit.

Low Maintenance Fresh Pasta

Because the pasta that I bought was fresh, it didn’t need much time to cook. I actually debated with myself about boiling it in water at all for fear that it would be overcooked, but I was happy with the results. I gently poured it into the boiling water for just about a 1-2 minute until it floated to the surface.

With a slotted spoon I scooped the pasta into the braise sauce, gently stirring it in. Adding the pasta to the sauce before it’s completely cooked infuses the noodles with the flavor of the sauce while it finishes cooking. I let it simmer for just a couple more minutes, removed it from the heat and stirred in 2 TBL butter, gently, don’t break the pasta.

If I’d had the supplies, I may have done a beurre manié to thicken the sauce a bit more. The sauce was on the thinner side which is partially why I chose to finish the pasta in it. This added to the texture of the sauce, and it coated everything nicely. A liquidy sauce was great for bread dipping too!

Better Than Olive Garden

I plated it up and topped it with a pinch of the bread dipping herbs I bought at the market. And voila! Braised Beef with Mushroom Tortellini.

This was such a delicious dish, even with limited ingredients. My husband was very happy and said he actually liked it better that when orders it at The Olive Garden. Yay!

My takeaway from this experiment is don’t be afraid to cook fancy-ish meals with what you have on hand and break the rules of recipes. I hope you try it!