Over the years and through her several cookbooks, Leah Koenig has gained a reputation for her explorations of Jewish culinary traditions within the modern diaspora. Her previous project, The Jewish Cookbook (Phaidon, 2019), is a hefty tome, leaping across continents to survey Jewish foodways. In comparison, her latest cookbook Portico: Cooking and Feasting in Rome’s Jewish Kitchen is considerably more focused and personal, taking a deep dive into one community rooted in more than 2,000 years of history, hardship and faith.
Koenig took a life-changing tour of Rome’s Jewish Ghetto with her husband, Yoshie, on their honeymoon, and they were invited to a Shabbat dinner with Giovanni Terracina, who ran a kosher catering company there. Koenig was surprised by how distinctive the food at dinner was—not identifiably “Jewish” as she had known it, but quintessentially Roman Jewish.
“The community is so ancient, it predates the formation of Ashkenazi and Sephardi culture and cuisine!” says Koenig. “The Roman Jewish dishes I have eaten in Rome over the years—both in restaurants and in people’s homes—are unlike any other Jewish cuisine I have ever experienced. And yet they felt so familiar in my bones. These meals and experiences gave me a taste of just how diverse Jewish cuisine can be.”
Koenig was a long-time vegetarian at that time, and Terracina’s meal was heavy on meat, but she really didn’t want to pass it up. (“I turned to my husband and whispered, ‘If the phrase ‘when in Rome …’ ever applies, it’s tonight.’”) One of the dishes served was a red wine–soaked stew, stracotto di manzo. Braised for almost three hours, the beef is supple and the sauce velvety, but the stew is surprisingly simple, containing only seven ingredients, along with salt and pepper. The recipe’s most important aspect is time. (The name translates literally to “overcooked beef.”) To Koenig, dishes like stracotto di manzo demonstrate how “elemental” Roman Jewish cooking is, spare yet open to variation.
“Every Jewish nonna will tell you that her way of making a dish is the right way,” says Koenig. “Stracotto is no exception. The common denominators among versions of the recipe are meat (often shin meat or another cut that likes to be slowly braised) and a lot of tomato passata [a purée of uncooked, strained tomatoes]. Some cooks use onions, while others say onion has no place in stracotto. Some recipes, like the one I learned from Giovanni, have red wine in them, while others do not.”
The more tender, personal parts of this cookbook include vignettes about how food and faith intertwine in the ghetto, covering the restaurants that have turned into landmarks, rising cuisines from new Jewish immigrant groups and holiday traditions. One notable food tradition is how Roman Jews break their Yom Kippur fast by drinking a “nourishing and soothing” chicken and beef broth. “First they drink it alone, and then they have some with homemade pasta,” says Koenig. “After 25 hours of not eating, broth seems like an inspired way to begin again, so we are going to do that this year.”
Leah Koenig is the author of seven cookbooks covering food across the Jewish diaspora. (Kristin Tieg)
This year, Koenig is going to include stracotto di manzo in her Ashkenazi family’s usual High Holidays line-up of brisket, kugel, tsimmes and apple cake. What makes this dish so holiday-friendly is that it can easily be stretched into two courses, Roman-style: Koenig likes to use some of the stew’s juices to coat a batch of rigatoni for an easy and simple primi, reserving the meat and vegetables for the secondi. (Don’t worry about the stew becoming dry, as there is plenty of sauce to spare.) The pasta course is not included in the recipe below, as it’s self-explanatory: Boil pasta and cover in sauce. (Koenig cooks one pound of rigatoni to serve around six to eight guests). For the main course, Koenig suggests accompanying the beef with a Roman spread filled with vegetables: herby and silky marinated zucchini, fragrant roasted cipollini onions or stuffed tomatoes with rice.
Koenig encourages you to use the same wine in the stew as the one you plan to drink with the meal, preferably a drier-style red. To complement this hearty dish, Wine Spectator selected six recently rated kosher red wines from across the globe, from a sophisticated Rhône-style blend from Israel to a balanced, peppery Merlot from South Africa. L’Chaim!
Stracotto di Manzo
Excerpted from Portico: Cooking and Feasting in Rome’s Jewish Kitchen Copyright (c) 2023. Used with permission of the publisher, W.W. Norton & Company. All rights reserved.
Ingredients
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more if needed
3 pounds (1.4 kg) boneless beef chuck, cut into 2-inch (5 cm) pieces
2 medium yellow onions, finely chopped
2 celery stalks, finely chopped
4 medium garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 cup (236 ml) dry red wine
Two 24.5-ounce (700 grams) bottles or cans tomato puree (passata)
2 teaspoons kosher salt, plus more if needed
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Preparation
1. Heat the oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Working in batches, add the beef and cook, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned on all sides, 3 to 5 minutes per batch; transfer the beef to a large plate as it is browned. Add a drizzle of more oil if the pot begins to look dry. Set the beef aside.
2. Add the onions, celery and garlic to the pot, reduce the heat to medium and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and lightly browned, 8 to 10 minutes. Stir in the wine, raise the heat to medium-high and bring to a boil.
3. Add the tomato puree and browned beef (along with any juices that have accumulated on the plate) to the Dutch oven, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until the beef is very tender and the sauce is creamy and thick, 2 1/2 to 3 hours.
4. Stir in the salt and pepper. Taste and add more salt, if desired. Serve hot. Serves 6-8 if you aren’t serving much else, 8-12 if you are serving a variety of other dishes as well.
Four Kosher Red Wines for a Good New Year
Note: The following list is a selection of outstanding and very good wines from recently rated releases. More options can be found in this recent Tasting Highlights featuring kosher wines.
DOMAINE DU CASTEL
Petit Castel Haute-Judée 2019
Score: 89 | $50
WS Review: An inviting wine, with an eclectic mix of cardamom, anise and singed alder infusing a base of stewed damson plum and red berry. The fresh finish features graphite and steeped tea notes. Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot. Kosher. Drink now through 2027. 1,000 cases imported. From Israel.—K.B.
BACKSBERG
Merlot Paarl Kosher 2019
Score: 87 | $19
WS Review:This balanced, medium-bodied red delivers juicy black cherry and blackberry fruit accented by savory hints of tobacco, graphite and milled pepper. Kosher. Drink now. 894 cases imported. From South Africa.—Alison Napjus
TABOR
Cabernet Sauvignon Galilee Adama 2017
Score: 87 | $20
WS Review: A medium-bodied red, offering cherry and plum underscored by cigar box and fresh tobacco, with olive tapenade and singed garrigue on the supple palate. Kosher. Drink now. 1,000 cases imported. From Israel.—K.B.
DOMAINE BOUSQUET
Malbec Tupungato Alavida 2022
Score: 86 | $18
WS Review: Lush berry and plum flavors are the driving feature, revealing subtle spice details on the round finish. Kosher. Drink now. 5,500 cases imported. From Argentina.—Aaron Romano