Home early today due to a major snowstorm and suddenly it feels like winter! Started thinking that its time, this weekend, to make some ragu for that pici/pinci I dragged home from Pienza!
So my query is, what's your favorite Ragu recipe? Its not that I can't find one--quite the opposite, there are a million! But which to choose? Anyone have a favorite they can recommend (preferably not too complex.) And please, no wild boar or rabbit --the first is a little hard to find in Brooklyn, the second just too cute to eat, sorry (and I know we had THAT thread before!)
Janet
Posts: 2014 | Location: Brooklyn NY | Registered: 10 March 2002
Here's the Sugo or Ragu recipe on my site. In Montepulciano, they also serve Pici with Aglione sauce,, nice big slices of lightly sauted garlic... lots, in a light tomato sauce.. with or without chili!
There isn't much tomato in the sugo , sometimes I only use wine, then I call it Sugo di..vino. Originally there were no tomatoes in the sauce until around 1648. All that new world stuff.
As for me, I prepare my ragu' adding to the sirloin (cf Diva's recipe), one third of minced pork meat, and a little garlic too. Then, according to my sicilian mother-in-law, a real ragu' should cook for at least one and a half hour. Otherwise, she calls it "salsa con la carne" (tomato sauce with meat), not ragu'. Dodin
Well I knew I could count on Diva for a simple and authentic recipe! Hazan's looks very similar but that one includes milk. Looking in Lynne Kaspers "The Splendid Table" Emilia-Romagna cookbook, her ragu's also all include milk or cream, and white wine, not red. Is this strictly a Bolognese thing?
Right now I'm definitely leaning towards Diva's recipe...it seems so simple and yet so...yummy!
Janet
Posts: 2014 | Location: Brooklyn NY | Registered: 10 March 2002
No recipe or opinion, but an etymological note. Ragù comes from the French ragoût, a stew. French ragoûts stew for a long time: Sicilian mothers-in-law know their von Wartburg....
I think the purpose of the milk or cream addition is to give the gravy a richer flavor and to cut any acidity from the tomatoes. I like the idea of using red wine instead of white though.
Judy, I'm salivating from your recipes. It's such a tease right now since I'm having a brand new kitchen installed as we speak and am listening to the demolition crew do their thing. Perhaps, in 4 -5 weeks I'll be able to start trying them!
Edna
Posts: 312 | Location: Irvington, New York | Registered: 28 July 2001
The milk is an Emilia Romagna thing... also if you but a sprinkling of flour on the meat before adding the broth and or milk , it makes it creamy.. everything there is fatter.
I also add one sausage to my sauce too...and a little orange or lemon rind If I am doing the version from Mario's in Florence ( just a tomato or two) A pinch of pumpkin pie spice mix ( called Droghe ) makes it very Renaissance.
One of the reasons for long stewing of the sauce is that traditionally the meat was not ground sirlion but leftover scraps usually with grizzle and fat cut off the more important parts of the meat, which needed a longer cooking time to tenderize. Also, the American canned tomatoes take longer to break down than Italian tomatoes do. I remember the old recipes with a can of stewed tomatoes, tomato paste and pureed tomatoes... cooked for hours and adding sugar to take away some of the acidity of the tomatoes... all in the name of making it taste like it was cooked with ripe tomatoes.
cook in few olive oil cutted onion, garlic and chili red pepper.Add sausages minced( you need fresh sausages). Add porcini mushrooms ( you can even use dry, but put in the hot water before)and a few of tomato sauce..If you use dry porcini, put in the sauce even the water ( filtered) At the end add a little of cream. Cook about 30' till the water is gone.
There is a great recipe for ragu with mushrooms in the Mayes book In Tuscany. I used dried porcinis and it was delicious. My husband still raves about the pici w/ ragu at the Taverna Grappola Blu in Montalcino. The recipe I mention is similar, but of course, not the same. It's the time, the place, and the local ingredients that make it so memorable.
If you don't have the book, I will be glad to post the recipe or e-mail.
Posts: 1457 | Location: on the Alabama River | Registered: 22 July 2002
Dried porcini make anything better... well almost anything. Soak in cold water and then remove the mushrooms and save the water. Add the chopped mushrooms to the sauce ( I usually add them after I have sauteed the veggies, for the meatless version called Sugo Finto, leave out the meat it is fabulous)
Then you can strain the mushroom water through a coffee filter and add it to the sauce. Killer! I save this version for parties.
I put dried porcinis in everything--my "everyday" quick pasta sauce is essentially a can of italian tomatoes with a healthy dose of dried porcini (soaked exactly as Judy described, adding the liquid to the sauce and cooking it down.) We brought home a huge bag of the freshest dried porcini I'd ever seen--when reconstituted you'd almost swear they were fresh. Just can't get 'em like that here.
Anyway, now it looks like I'll have to make more than one of these recipes!
Janice, I do have the Mayes book, I'd forgotten she had some recipes in it! I'll have to hunt that one down. So many sauces, not enough Pici! I'll have to go back for more!
Janet
Posts: 2014 | Location: Brooklyn NY | Registered: 10 March 2002
We were amking our traditional post Thanksgiving turkey soup. We had bought a huge bag of dried porcini at the Mercato Centrale in Firenze. I pulled it out to add some dried shrooms to our soup. Kay, my wife, gave out a dissapointed shout as there was a small moth in the mushrooms. I said that these mushrooms smelled too good and that boiling them in soup would sterilize any thing else int he mushrooms. Boy what a good soup!!!
If life is an opera by Puccini... I want to be Calaf!
Posts: 4612 | Location: Casa del Fenicottero Rosa, Silver Spring, MD USA | Registered: 06 August 2002
The pici with garlic and oil at Il Pozzo in Sant Angelo in Colle was pretty amazing for about 5 euro a plate. They also ahve hand rolled pici but it wasn't ready at lunch when we were there. Pici, a nice bottle of Brunello or Rosso, in the middle of Brunello.......
If life is an opera by Puccini... I want to be Calaf!
Posts: 4612 | Location: Casa del Fenicottero Rosa, Silver Spring, MD USA | Registered: 06 August 2002
One of the problems with the dried mushroms are bugs. As they are not overly dried , the retain more flavor and perhaps some bugs...the secret that florentines use is to keep them in the freezer. Or with peppercorns. the do the same with dried chili peppers.
Well the ragu is simmering--I used more or less a mix-up of three recipes--Judy's, Hazan's, and one in Cook's Illustrated for the best ragu Bolognese. I did end up putting milk in it, and white wine rather than red, because I wanted the more delicate flavoring. Anyway...Mmmmmm it smells great and is starting to taste like Italy! Thanks for all the tips!
Janet
Posts: 2014 | Location: Brooklyn NY | Registered: 10 March 2002
while ragu made with cream or whole milk will have more fat, the flavor and tenderness imparted by the milk can be achieved with non fat milk. I make ragu with mixed meats. I add my white wine and let it cook down till all the wine is gone. Then I skim off a goodly protion of the fat and add non fat milk to cover. I cook it down again and add my tomatoes if I am using them. Good for those watching the fat intake
If life is an opera by Puccini... I want to be Calaf!
Posts: 4612 | Location: Casa del Fenicottero Rosa, Silver Spring, MD USA | Registered: 06 August 2002
I have skimmed this thread after returning to SoCal from the Northeast snowstorm, and it sounds an ideal activity for a snowbound day. My understanding (maybe from Marcella Hazan) is that the milk is to counter some of the tomatoes' acidity, and not being a chemist I don't have a fat/skim opinion, but whatever fat is present at the end of the preparation can be skimmed off, no? I did find a recipe for ragu' bolognese in an issue last year of Saveur (now in the Saveur Cooks Italian cookbook) which I think is even better than Marcella's, and a little easier, I think. It had some chicken livers and some sausage as well as not-too-lean ground beef. I usually make a double recipe and freeze the extra. And the porcini are always special (the moths won't eat much.)
Posts: 2054 | Location: Suburban Philadelphia | Registered: 08 July 2002
So lovely to be standing at the grocery store contemplating another week of dinners-- and suddenly remembering this thread. And portabello mushrooms were on sale. "Ick", said my offspring Evan. "I ate a mushroom once by mistake", said my offspring Dan. "And you lived to tell the tale", said I.
So, tonight's sauce had onion, garlic, diced carrot, many chopped portabellos, dried porcini from Bassano del Grappa(moths optional), lots of red wine, a box of chopped tomato, and parsley. Added a bit of light cream at the end. Got a hunk of good parmesean. We even dragged out the pasta machine (the hand-cranked yard-sale find) to make wide pasta. I'm a believer in child labor.
In Tuscany..ok maybe just in Florence; often when we make meat sauce for pasta, if we then toss the pasta in the skillet to bind it with the sauce, we add some bechamel sauce ( white sauce) which adds a creaminess that is lovely.) Bechamel is 2 tbs melted butter, 2 tbs flour heated in the butter, pinch of salt and nutmega an 1 cup of hot milk, WHISK... DON'T STOP..I am not yelling just emphasising the importance... It will thicken.
It is also the secret to the fabulous lasanga here, layered with meat sauce, grated parmesan and bechamel. NO RICOTTA. It bakes up like a souffle.
in bianco in italian is the absence of tomato, which wasnà t introduced until after Colombus brought back the new world foods.... corn, tomatoes, chocolate, chili, turkey, sugar,potatoes... Imagine no gnocchi, no polenta, no tomato sauce... no nutella or baci!!!!
The final verdict on my Sunday ragu was--yummy! but I used all beef and I think next time I will use part beef and part pork or veal or all three for a more complex flavor--it was a little one-dimensional. But so simple to make, really--as long as you have a long cold winter day to stick around while it simmers! I think next time I will also make a larger batch!
Janet
Posts: 2014 | Location: Brooklyn NY | Registered: 10 March 2002
I've been waiting, hoping somebody else would ask this dumb question, but obviously I'm the only one who doesn't know the answer! I know what ragu is, but what is pici?
Topic Closed
I dragged home from Pienza!
