Peposo is a typical Tuscan meat dish, originally from Impruneta (‘peposo dell’Impruneta’), near Florence. It is a beef stew (‘in umido’) cooked in the oven for up to three hours. It generously seasoned with black pepper (and garlic), and a little tomato and red wine (Chianti). It seems to have been invented by the fornacini of Impruneta (the people in charge of cooking bricks in the kilns) who used to put the pieces of muscle in an earthenware pan with the other ingredients and place it at the mouth of the oven so that it could cook very slowly. After a few hours the meat was ready. The terracotta products of Impruneta are renowned (jars, jars, amphorae, bricks and tiles). The bricks for Brunelleschi’s dome of the Florence Cathedral were also fired in the ovens of Impruneta.
Ingredients: Guelfo Magrini (summarising the recipe used at the Il Pozzo restaurant in Sant’Angelo in Colle, Montalcino) suggests 1kg of beef cheek, 1.5 litres of Brunello di Montalcino DOCG red wine, green pepper and mashed black pepper, 3 spikes of cloves, wild fennel (flowers or seeds), 2 heads of garlic, salt. Have a cheesecloth sack to hand too. Serve with polenta (not too soft so that it can be eaten with the cooking sauce).