Beef rolls with chickpeas and tomatoes
Beef rolls (“involtini”) with chickpeas and tomatoes is a dish that uses traditional ingredients of central Italy’s countryside for a rustic meal that encapsulates the concept of home cooking. This recipe from the Marche region is nutritious and easy to prepare, making it ideal for quick one-stop lunches and hearty dinners.
INGREDIENTS
| Tomato sauce with tomato chunks | 400 gr |
| Canned pre-cooked chickpeas | 250 gr |
| Beef or veal, thinly sliced | 300 gr (4 slices) |
| Italian soft sausages (salsiccia) | 150 gr (2 small) |
| Garlic | Two cloves |
| Olive oil | 30 ml (2 tablespoons) |
| Salt | To taste |
| Pugliese bread or sourdough |
400 gr |
* Calories exclude bread
PREPARATION
Prepare the sauce
- Peel and thinly slice or crush the garlic cloves.
- Pour the olive oil into a pan and sauté the garlic for a couple of minutes on medium heat.
- Add the tomato sauce and the canned chickpeas.
- Salt to taste.
- Cook for 10 minutes or until the sauce has thickened.
*NOTE*
The sausages: for this dish we used traditional Italian salsiccia, which is made of lightly smoked, soft pork. To stay super-authentic you could also roll your beef slices with salsiccia’s brother, ciauscolo, a sausage made of pork and fat that is spiced with black pepper and garlic and then cold-smoked over juniper branches. The result of this process is a moist sausage that is spread on toasted bread or, like in this case, meat. If you don’t have access to an Italian butcher, any soft sausage made of dry-cured meat will do the trick.
The meat: our butcher gave us maxi-slices of beef so we made three rolls; if you are preparing a meal for two, four rolls are obviously more practical.
Prepare the meat rolls
You can start preparing the rolls after you have sautéed the garlic and added the tomato sauce with the chickpeas.
- Peel the sausages and spread them on the beef slices with a fork.
- Fold the meat and keep the rolls in place with wooden toothpicks.
- Place the meat in the pan with the tomato and chickpeas.
- Cook for 10 minutes on medium-high heat.
*NOTE*
The tomatoes: If you want to prepare the sauce from scratch, peel the tomatoes as described here and chop them into small cubes. Sauté the cubes in two tablespoons of olive oil and thinly sliced garlic, then cook on medium heat for 20 minutes. You can use any tomatoes as long as they are red and ripe.
The chickpeas: you can replace them with red beans or the borlotti variety that is omnipresent in Italy. Boil the beans in advance or use pre-cooked or baked beans.
SERVE & PAIR
Plate your dish:
- Remove the toothpicks as they might impale someone’s palate – kinda spoils the experience.
- Serve the beef rolls straight out of the pan and plate them with toasted sourdough or pugliese bread.
- You can keep the meat rolls in the fridge overnight as the chickpeas stew is tastier when you reheat it the following day.
Pair with red wine:
- Pair with a full-bodied red. You can choose a central Italian wine such as a Rosso Conero from Marche, Montepulciano from Abruzzo, or Sangiovese from Toscana and Romagna. These wines aren’t super sophisticated but they complement beautifully the high protein content of your dish.
- If you prefer an international variety, Cabernet Sauvignon is always a winner with meaty dishes. With the involtini you can also try a Cabernet Franc, Malbec or a smoky South African Pinotage.
