Orazio D’Elia’s name is synonymous with Italian cuisine in Sydney. After moving to Australia from Naples when he was 24, he later joined forces with Sydney restaurateur Maurice Terzini to open Da Orazio at Bondi Beach in 2014. The restaurant quickly became well-known for its mouth-watering Neapolitan pizza and porchetta (D’Elia now owns Da Orazio on his own). In 2017, he opened his second restaurant, Matteo, in Double Bay, a light and bright venue inspired by the Amalfi Coast.
D’Elia’s spiced beef rump roast is an easy recipe that encapsulates what he loves most about Italian cuisine.
“The simplicity of Italian cuisine is the beauty of it,” he says. “We let the ingredients speak for themselves.”
An easy choice for a Sunday lunch, it’s simple to prepare but packed with flavour thanks to a marinade made of freshly blitzed spices: three kinds of pepper (red, black and ground), fennel seeds, coriander, turmeric and fresh marjoram leaves.
“Black pepper is very famous in Neapolitan cuisine, and fennel seeds I use in my porchetta in the restaurant,” says D’Elia.
D’Elia has a few tips for making the most of his recipe. First, you’ll want to choose a piece of meat with a high marble score.
“Cooking meat with a high marble score at a low temperature, you get a beautiful kind of roast,” he says. “It’s going to cook for five hours, so something with a high volume of fat will keep it moist.”
Once the dish is ready, the choice of wine is important as well.
“When it’s done, cut a big slice and you have it with wine, it’s just amazing,” D’Elia says.
The wine to match? Riddoch Coonawarra’s Elgin’s Crossing Cabernet Sauvignon.
“It’s a big, beautiful wine with lots of body, so it needs to go with something big. The spices here are really intense in flavour – they bring out the aroma of the wine.”
To finish the meal, a warm side salad with sweet sugarloaf cabbage, ’nduja and white balsamic vinegar adds acidity and balances out all that richness.
Orazio D’Elia’s spiced Wagyu rump cap roast
Serves 6–8
Prep time: 10 minutes (plus 1 hour marinating time)
Cooking time: 5 hours
Ingredients:
1 whole rump cap
25g black peppercorns
25g red peppercorns
25g fennel seeds
25g coriander seeds
25g turmeric powder
25g ground pepper
25g tsp sea salt
250ml extra virgin olive oil
1 bunch marjoram leaves
Warm cabbage and ’nduja salad:
1 whole sugarloaf cabbage
200g ’nduja
1 Spanish onion
50ml extra virgin olive oil
50ml white balsamic vinegar
Method:
Score the fat on the rump.
Place all the spices, herbs and salt in a blender with the extra virgin olive oil and blitz until smooth. Place the rump in a baking dish, spread and rub the marinade mixture all over the meat. Leave to marinate for 1 hour.
Preheat the oven to 120°C and bake for five hours. Take the dish out of the oven and place it on a wooden board.
For the warm cabbage and nduja salad, cut the cabbage into 3cm-thin slices and slice the onion.
In a large pan, add the olive oil and onion and let it sweat slowly. Add the ‘nduga and cook for 1 minute until it breaks apart. Add cabbage and toss through. Add white balsamic vinegar and let it evaporate before adding a pinch of salt. Add a generous ladle of water to help everything combine and cook for 5–6 minutes until the cabbage has softened.
To serve, slice the rump into 2cm-thin slices. Serve with the warm cabbage and ’nduja salad.
This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with Riddoch Coonawarra.
