28/10/2020
I saw a recipe the other day on a well known food blog where they added in wine and tomato sauce all together WITH raw spaghetti as a “one pot dish” and after recovering from my initial shock, remembered that I had promised to share with you all a ragù recipe.
Want to make a super simple fail proof ragù? One that we actually eat over here?
Here’s the exact recipe that we follow to make delicious lasagna, baked pasta, spaghetti, and any other dish needing a meat sauce.
You’re going to need:
- diced small onion, celery, and carrot (nothing crazy, even a few TBSP of each is ok) 🥕🧅
- extra virgin olive oil (few TBSP)
- ground beef 🐮
- ground pork 🐷
- red wine (optional but recommended - I use about 250ml but you’re looking for enough to basically almost cover the meat)🍷
- tomato sauce (one jar of about 750ml)🥫
- salt
- k**b of butter (optional)
First a word about quantities since you probably notice I didn’t put any.
When we buy ground beef here it comes in the usual package sizes by weight usually hovering around a kg (about 2 lbs). I will buy one or two packages depending on how much ragù I am making. For the ground pork - you don’t need a 1:1 ratio. Just a little bit - maybe the amount you’d expect from 4-5 sausages. We have smaller packages here of a few hundred grams and I’ll get one or two of those depending on how much I’m making. Note that the ground beef is usually labeled as being for ragù because the fat content is higher, but this is entirely up to you. You can use lean ground beef if you like.
For everything else - the wine, the tomato sauce, etc you’ll adjust up or down depending on how thick you want your sauce or how much wine you might want to use.
Everything is done in stages so you can’t go wrong. Even if you add in a whole bottle of wine because that’s how you roll, you needn’t worry about how this will affect the taste because you’re going to boil it down until all the alcohol has evaporated and you’re left with tender, delicious (kinda since I wouldn’t really eat the ragù at this point without the tomato sauce). So feel free to add in just a glass, or an entire bottle if you prefer. The main difference will be in the amount of time you need to wait before moving on.
Also - note that I don’t have any herbs or spices in here either. This isn’t a mistake. Everyone has their own recipe for ragù and I’m sure people in Bologna are already shaking their heads at what I’m sharing with you, but if you look up “ragù di carne” in Google and check the first page of results I’d be willing to bet that all of them only have salt and maybe pepper as the only “spices” in their recipe.
That being said, I have talked to chefs before who have their own secret fresh herb blends that they put together in their ragù - often handpicked and tied together then removed later - but this is not the norm.
Fundamentally Italian cooking is simple and doesn’t have a lot of herbs and spices and mixtures of weird ingredients and cooking methods to prepare your favorite dish. Nine times out of ten it’s just a few ingredients, cooked simply, that will knock your socks off. The difference is that the ingredients are high quality and in season.
So, now that I’ve given my brief digression - let’s move into how to make this super simple fail proof ragù!
1. Get out a large pot and add enough olive oil to lightly cover the bottom. This is usually about 2-3 TBSP. Turn the heat in low-medium.
2. Add in the diced onion, carrot, and celery. This is your “soffritto” and serves to add flavor to the sauce. You don’t need to add in huge quantities. When we make ragù we usually add in about a 1/3C and that’s that. I’m not sure about where you’re from - but here I can buy it in the frozen food aisle in small boxes already diced and this is very convenient. Otherwise - depending on your knife skills - you could quickly dice a half a small onion, a small carrot and one celery stalk together, or add them to a food processor for a quick chop and that’s good.
3. Cook the soffritto and stir occasionally to ensure you’re not burning anything, checking for the onions to be translucent.
4. Turn up the heat to medium. Add in the ground beef and pork. Stir and break up into chunks if you need to. This is where you can add in a k**b of butter if you like. I haven’t decided yet whether this makes a huge difference to the overall product or not, but I like butter so I usually add in a little. Keep cooking until all if the juices have evaporated and you’re almost left with a dry pot.
5. Add in the wine and cook until you’re left with an almost dry pot. You can add in just a glass, or add in enough to almost cover the meat. We can buy small cartons of cooking wine here and I will usually use one if I’m using jus tone package of ground beef or two if I’m making more.
6. Add in the tomato sauce and slightly lower the heat as you’ll be simmering now. This is the last step and the time needed will depend on how thick you want your sauce.
If you’re making lasagna - keep the sauce a bit “wetter” as you’ll need the sauce to have some liquid to it to cook your lasagna sfoglie (lasagna pasta “noodles”).
If you’re making spaghetti - make this as thick as you like!
7. Once you’ve gotten your sauce to about the thickness that you like - adjust the salt to your preference and you’re done.
Seriously - that’s it!
Let me know how this works out for you and if you have any questions - just ask!
Buon appetito! 🍝
