Salt Fat Acid Heat Pasta al Ragù
This is a pretty good looking pasta
I wonder how well a meat forward sauce will turn out
Time: 3 hrs 30 minutes
Ingredient Availability: 5/5
Difficulty: 1/5
I’m sure, for many of us, when we think of Ragu, the first thing that comes to mind is the store brand tomato/pasta sauce that comes in a glass bottle with a yellow top. When you know what Ragù really is, it’s pretty interesting that’s the name they decided to go with. In a Ragù, the meat is the main deal. Sure, there are other components, but this sauce is really just a meat sauce, not a tomato sauce. With that being said, I’ve had my eye on this recipe for a while, but I think I was a little intimidated by the length of the recipe and the soffritto. Looking back on it now, I know that I was exaggerating everything in my mind. I’ve made way more time intensive and tedious recipes than this one. After you get everything in the pot, it’s really just a waiting game.
Key Ingredients and Omissions:
The Bay Leaves are Missing from this pic
I didn’t omit anything that wasn’t optional. I didn’t have a parmesan rind nor a whole nutmeg, so I just left out the rind and used some ground nutmeg instead.
My grocery store didn’t have any ground pork, so I just bought a pork shoulder and ground a pound of it. I’m sure most grocery stores will have the ground pork.
Tools:
Dutch oven
Sharp Knife
Cooking Review:
Prep: 25 Minutes
For this recipe, it was really nice to have everything ready to go before turning on the heat. Before doing the first step in this recipe, I minced my carrot, onions, and celery, as well as used a paring knife to get a few strips of orange and lemon zest. I had a few different pieces of zest because I wasn’t used to obtaining zest from a fruit in that way, so I had a few shorter pieces. As far as the mincing goes, make everything as small as you can without essentially pureeing it. I probably should’ve gone a little smaller on mine, but most pieces kinda melt away by the end.
Browning Meats: 15 Minutes
Once my ingredients were prepared, I put my pan on the stove over high heat until it was hot before adding enough oil to coat the bottom and dropping in my broken up ground beef. For the first minute or two, I didn’t move the beef at all to get more color on it. After a total cook time of 6 minutes, stirring occasionally and breaking up the meat further, I transferred the beef to a bowl, leaving behind the fat. I repeated this step with the ground pork, which took 7 minutes to cook. The pork was transferred to the bowl with the beef.
Soffritto: 21 minutes
I lowered the heat slightly and added the onions, carrots, and celery to the hot pan. I then added more olive oil until the vegetables were nearly covered. The soffritto cooked and browned for about 20 minutes before I called it. I was getting nervous about overcooking or burning the soffrito, so I stirred it frequently until I thought it was plenty brown enough. Just monitor it and make sure it doesn’t go too far.
Bringing to a boil: 6 minutes
Next, I returned the meat to the pot along with the rest of the ingredients (wine, stock, milk, bay leaves, zest, cinnamon, and tomato paste). When I added the wine, I was sure to scrape the bottom the pot to get up anything that may have become stuck on. I also added some salt and pepper here. With everything in the pot and mixed in, I then let everything come to a boil, which took about 6 minutes.
It won’t look very appetizing at this point
Simmer: 31 minutes
Once everything came to a boil, I lowered the heat and let it simmer for half an hour before tasing and adding a little red wine, salt, and pepper. Be sure to taste yours and adjust to your liking. At this point, there’s a lot of cooking to go, so you don’t have to be perfect, but the milk, stock, and wine should definitely be adjusted sooner than later.
Looks a lot better here
Finishing: 2 hours
The heat was lowered as low as it could go and I let it cook for almost two hours, stirring here and there as it simmered. I didn’t have many clumps of fat come to the surface to skim off. The sauce is pretty much done when you think it tastes right, but you should definitely let it reduce a good amount. You can continue adjusting the components until it’s just right for you, within reason. About half an hour before I took the sauce off the heat, I started boiling the water for my pasta. I went with rigatoni simply because it was the only one of the recommended styles that was at my grocery store. I cooked the pasta according to the package instructions before draining it and adding 2 cups of sauce and 4 tablespoons of butter.
This sauce will reduce considerably
Analysis:
While the flavor is a bit hard to put my finger on, it’s just excellent. There’s a little bit of everything here, some sweetness, saltiness, tanginess, and plenty of savoriness. I shouldn’t be surprised considering the book that this comes from, but I don’t think I’ve made, or even had, a better pasta sauce. There’s plenty of depth to the flavors, which is something I really enjoy and look for in top tier food. The texture is good, clinging to and filling the pasta surprisingly well for how chunky it is. While it is chunky, the sauce is smooth at the same time where there aren’t chunks of meat. It’s really almost creamy, which I think is due to the milk in this recipe. But, really, the flavors are the star of the show here. Nearly every single ingredient in this recipe can be either felt texturally or tasted on one level or another. Seriously, from the citrus to the little nutmeg I added, I could taste it all and they all work extremely well together. This recipe is a 10/10. It’s very easy to make and yields an excellent result. There’s nothing else I could ask for from this one.
It coats the pasta a lot better than you might expect
