I am like a lot of people in North America, had wrong notions of what real Italian cuisine is. For me at least when it comes to many Italian pasta dishes, and especially spaghetti with meat sauce. Only very recently that I did some reading online on properly way to make
ragú.
Last night, I decided to make some
ragú. I didn't plan nor shop for the ingredients to make it. I have this leftover half can of whole Roma tomato that I pureed to make pizza and have been sitting in the refrigerator for 2 weeks now. To prevent it from going bad, I have been remembering to take it out to boil or steam to kill off the bacteria. I also have a good piece of pork butt left over from making boudin so I thought, perfect!
I didn't follow any recipe, but rather, just read the techniques like
this and many excellent posts over at FXcuisine.
some of the ingredients (onion, celery, parsley and spices not shown); i am saving the pig skin to make cracking later
the pork butt with fat and a tiny piece of pig liver i intended to add richness - ready to be ground up
next time i would using a finer die plate with 1/4" holes instead
i broke open my can of anchovies from my pantry
after the meat and the vegetables has been saute for a long time, i added in four anchovies at a corner i cleared off to caramelize them
then i slowly added in a bit of the tomato puree spoonful at a time - this is one of the most important step, and must be done in a big vessel like a Dutch oven; this uncoated Lodge (still made in USA) is excellent for this kind of cooking (does everything the very overpriced le creuset at 1/8 the cost)
still got a way to go with the reduction yet - and i made a phone call to invite my neighbor over to share the meal
i made some fresh fettuccine enough for two people
you can see the proper dark brownish red of the ragú - unlike the disgusting bright orange and runny canned products
The ragú could use quite a bit more tomato sauce, but I wasn't going to make a trip to the store just for that. It is the only real ragú that I've ever made and I am happy with the result using only what I had on hand.
Next time I would grind the meat finer using a die plate with 1/4" holes instead of the 7/16" one I used.
