The FAKE LEAN MEAT is a rich and flavorful stuffed meat roll typical of Sicilian tradition, whose peculiarity lies in hiding a substantial filling inside, revealed only when cut, hence its name (fake – lean).
A main dish for festive days when you have a bit more time to spend in the kitchen and want to pamper your loved ones.
This Stuffed Meat Roll, widespread throughout Sicily, differs from city to city in the ingredients used in the filling.
As with all traditional recipes, there are different versions of FAKE LEAN MEAT: the most common is made with a slice of beef on which a filling of ground meat, pecorino cheese, and breadcrumbs is spread, to which caciocavallo, boiled eggs, mortadella, and lard are added; others simply stuff it with slices of mortadella, cooked ham, boiled eggs, and spicy provolone cheese.
What we will prepare today is my grandmother’s recipe, so to speak, a “lighter” version of the Fake Lean Meat with cooked ham, provolone, parmesan, and an egg omelet that she used to cook on Sundays when they came to visit her for lunch.
A less rich version than the traditional one but no less good for bringing a tasty and substantial main dish to the table that will make everyone happy. Now I’ll tell you a little family anecdote …. every time this dish came to the table, my grandmother and her sister, both from Messina, started arguing! Her sister, more traditionalist and greedy, looked at it and at the first cut exclaimed: “don’t call it Fake Lean Meat!!!! it’s too little rich!”. This is to say that every family, not to mention every Sicilian, has their version, always and anyway delicious.
If you love meat main dishes, also look at
- Difficulty: Medium
- Cost: Medium
- Preparation time: 30 Minutes
- Portions: 8
- Cooking methods: Stovetop, Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Energy 382.95 (Kcal)
- Carbohydrates 2.35 (g) of which sugars 1.13 (g)
- Proteins 34.86 (g)
- Fat 24.75 (g) of which saturated 11.17 (g)of which unsaturated 10.86 (g)
- Fibers 0.37 (g)
- Sodium 609.40 (mg)
Indicative values for a portion of 150 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA* and FoodData Central** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.
* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Ingredients
- 2.2 lbs beef (veal in a single slice see NOTE at the bottom for the cut of meat)
- 4.23 oz cooked ham (about 4-5 slices)
- 5.29 oz provolone cheese
- 2 cups vegetable broth
- 1/2 glass dry white wine
- 1 stalk celery
- 1 carrot
- 2 white onions (small or 1 large)
- as needed extra virgin olive oil
- as needed salt
- black pepper (ground 1 pinch)
- 2 eggs (whole)
- 1 tablespoon grated parmesan cheese
- fine salt (1 pinch)
- 1 thread extra virgin olive oil
Tools
- Bowl
- Pan
- Cooking string
- Pot
- Casserole
Steps
Place the eggs in a bowl along with the grated cheese and a pinch of salt and beat them with a fork. Heat a large non-stick pan, add a thread of extra virgin olive oil, then cook the mixture as if it were a thin omelet. Remove it from the heat and set it aside.
Take the meat and lightly pound it to make it as thin as possible, then start stuffing it. Lay the slices of cooked ham in a layer, then the omelet, and finally the sliced provolone. Roll the meat over itself, with the filling, to create a large roll. Close the ends of the roll by folding the meat inward to prevent the filling from escaping. Finally, roll the meat with string.
In a large pot that can hold the roast, pour a thread of extra virgin olive oil and sear the Fake Lean Meat over medium-high heat, turning it so it cooks on all sides until it changes color. Pour in the white wine and let it evaporate. Add the already hot broth, quartered onion, sliced carrot, celery, a pinch of salt and pepper, and cook for about 5 minutes or until it reaches a boil. Transfer the roast with its broth to a casserole and continue cooking in a fan oven at 392°F (200°C) for about 1 hour. Turn it occasionally, basting it with its broth.
When it is ready, take it out of the oven, remove it from the cooking liquid, and slice it. Transfer the remaining juices in the casserole to a blender and blend until a smooth and thick sauce is obtained. If it is still too liquid, reduce it by cooking it for a few more minutes on the stove. Serve the roast on various plates, drizzling it with the freshly prepared sauce.
STORAGE
You can prepare the Stuffed Meat Roll in advance and reheat it when ready to serve. Once ready, it keeps in the fridge, sealed in an airtight container, for up to 4 days. You can also freeze it, and in that case, I suggest portioning it first.
VARIATIONS to the RECIPE
Without pretending to mention all the possible versions of how to stuff the Sicilian Fake Lean Meat, I will point out the most popular ones according to my grandmother … so if you are not mentioned, blame her!
1 In the Messina area, my grandmother’s place of origin, the recipe is without ground meat but only with cooked ham, omelet or boiled egg, and provolone cheese.
2 In the Syracuse area this roast is stuffed with a mixture of ground meat, breadcrumbs, and pecorino, followed by a layer of mortadella, one of cooked ham, boiled eggs, and spicy provolone. Once rolled, it is cooked in white or with tomato puree.
3 In Catania, the slice of meat is spread with lard and then stuffed with strips of lard, boiled eggs, and caciocavallo, and cooked with tomato sauce.
4 In the province of Enna, a layer is created over the meat with a minced mixture of primo sale pecorino, boiled eggs, onion, parsley, and salt, without mortadella or ham, and cooked with concentrated tomato sauce.
TIPS
BEEF: The best cuts for this recipe are rump, round, or eye of round.
DELI MEATS: To follow my grandmother’s recipe, I used only cooked ham, but you can make your roast even tastier by adding sliced lard. Or replace the Ham with Mortadella. Other versions of this recipe include using salami, sausage, or bacon.
CHEESE: Provolone, Caciocavallo, Pecorino primo sale are all fine.
OMELET: If you don’t want to make the omelet, simple boiled eggs are also fine.
VEGETABLES: To make it even richer, you can add a layer of lightly sautéed spinach.
COOKING: Some prefer to cook the Fake Lean Meat in white first browning it in a pan and then finishing it in the oven with broth, while others continue cooking in a saucepan with the addition of tomato puree. Both versions are excellent.
FAKE LEAN MEAT HISTORY AND CURIOSITY
Little is known about the origins of this dish, some scholars date it back to the 13th century when Sicily was dominated by the Angevins. From then on, the dish was passed down from generation to generation until the 1600s, the century in which Fake Lean Meat left popular kitchens to enter the courts. It is also said that it was French cooks who first brought this dish into Sicilian aristocratic kitchens. Given the abundance of the dish and the relative simplicity of the recipe, this dish was considered a dish for Christmas lunch: a great way to impress and delight Sicilian nobles with a delicious and inviting course. Since then, in Sicily, the Fake Lean Meat has been associated with the Christmas period.
FAQ (Questions and Answers)
Why is it called fake lean meat?
The explanation seems simple: the appearance of this roast is deceptive because it looks like a normal lean meat roll, but in fact, it is not lean, and cutting it reveals the richness of its filling. In reality, however, it seems that its name derives from the French: “farce” which means “stuffing” and is pronounced “fars,” which over time became “farsu.” According to this hypothesis, the term “falsomagro” would translate to “stuffed meat.”
