There are several stories about this dish, but they all connect it to Filippo Brunelleschi, the Reinassance genius who projected the Duomo of Florence.
Peposo is a beef stewed with pepper and Chianti which was cooked in the same ovens where they cooked the terracotta tiles used for the Duomo of Florence.
It’s a long dish as the beef must cook for three and a half hours, but the final result is such a tasty and tender beef.
I like it with fried polenta, but it’s great also with toasted bread.

Ingredients

• 1kg of beef muscle
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 sprig of sage
• 1 sprig of rosemary
• 1 sprig of laurel
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 4-500 ml of Chianti wine
• 2 ladles of beef broth
• 2 teaspoons black peppercorns (freshly ground)

Directions

1. Remove excess external fat from the meat and cut it into cubes. In a large pan, preferably terracotta, brown the sliced garlic and the sage in a drizzle of oil over a low heat. Add the meat and brown it on all sides for half an hour.
2. Once the browning time has elapsed, add the tomato paste, the hot beef broth, the wine and the crushed pepper. Mix everything, cover with the lid and leave to cook on a low heat for 3 hours, or even more, so that the meat becomes very tender and the cooking bottom slightly glazed.
3. If it dries out too much, add more wine. Taste and if needed add more pepper, it must taste otherwise it wouldn’t be called peposo. Once cooked, plate it and serve hot, accompanying it with fried polenta.