Восхитительнейшее рагу
Ragù recipe for 4 persons:
ground meat (I used half beef and half pork) 300g
pancetta (bacon) 50g
oil
onion 1
carrot 1
celery 1
peeled tomatoes (can) 400g
white wine 1 cup
broth (meat or vegeteble) 1 cup
bay leaf 1
salt & pepper
Put the olive oil in a large pan. Finely chop the onion with the celery and the carrot, put in the pan and let soften, stirring. Add the pancetta, finely chopped, and let cook for a couple of minutes together with the veggies, without letting them get browned. Add the meat, and stir untill it’s completely cooked. Pour the wine and let it evaporate completely. Then add the tomatoes, the broth, and bay leaf, bring to boil then reduce heat, put lid on and let simmer for about 2 hours, stirring just once in while. The final ragù should be dense and fragrant. Add salt and pepper to taste, leave the ragù to rest for a couple of hours and reheat it gently before using (just toss some sauce with fresh cooked eggpasta).
How not to mess up your ragù
1. Take time. Ragù has to cook for several hours, slowly. So forget about it if you just have 20 minutes to prepare dinner. Prepare it on a lazy sunday morning and put a couple of batches in the freezer for week dinners.
2. Make stock. It’s not a difficult thing to do, just grab your meat leftovers, put them in a pan of cold water with some onion, celery and carrot, add some pepper and a bay leave, bring to boil and let simmer for a while. Filter and freeze. And that’s that: great real homemade stock ready for all your pasta and risotto, you’ll ask yourself why you never did this before, really! :)
3. Forget about spaghetti. Right away! Sure, spaghetti are great, the best, with carbonara, clams, whatever… But not with ragù, no way. Now pick up those tagliatelle and save your spaghetti for some other day :)
4. Use egg pasta. You don’t have to make it by yourself. If you do, it’s better, but, hey, nobody’s perfect…
5. Italians do it al dente. Pasta has this funny thing called cooking time. And it’s not an optionnal, so, have a look at it before throwing your pasta in boiling water (boiling, not lukewarm, non cold, boiling :), and drain the pasta in a colander one minute before time. There you are, al dente it is :)
6. Toss it! There’s no such thing as cooked pasta with sauce on top, so please, just toss them together! (it’s far yummier too, usually you should do this in a pan at high temperature, for less then a minute, in this case you can even use a dressing bowl pour ragu on top and mix well for a minute or so)
7. Holy parmigiano reggiano. No emmental or gruyère, not the parmisan like thing made in argentina, not already grated, no, just the real thing (actually I like my ragù without any cheese at all, I think it’s just perfect on it’s own :).
Коллега-итальянка вначале приготовила к вечеринке, а потом дала рецепт. Волшебно!