Neapolitan Ragu Recipes

Steps:

• In a small bowl, combine pine nuts, raisins and garlic. Lay meat slices on a work surface, and season them lightly on both sides with salt and pepper. Sprinkle pine nut and raisin mixture on 1 side of the slices. Roll slices up and secure them with a toothpick or tie them with kitchen string. Place them in a large, deep saute pan and add oil, onion and 4 cups of water. Place over medium heat and simmer, uncovered, until water has evaporated, about 1 1/4 hours.
• Continue cooking, turning meat rolls with tongs, until meat is lightly browned on all sides. Add wine to pan and cook until evaporated. Drain tomatoes, reserving juice, and coarsely chop tomatoes. Add tomatoes, reserved juice and tomato paste to pan and bring to a simmer. Cook until sauce is very thick, about 2 hours.
• Remove meat from pan with tongs, remove toothpicks or cut string, and place meat on a serving platter. Season sauce with salt and pepper, and pour it over ziti or penne. Serve with meat and grated Parmesan on the side.

Steps:

• Dry the round steak with paper towels, and rub it on both sides with salt and pepper.
• Sprinkle the meat with the parsley and cheese.
• Roll the meat up like a jellyroll, and tie it in several places with kitchen string.
• Salt and pepper the spare ribs. Set the meats aside.
• Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a large heavy duty pot. Over medium heat, brown the round steak and spare ribs in the oil on all sides. This will take about 5 minutes.
• Stir in the onion, celery and carrot and continue cooking until the vegetables begin to soften. Stir in the garlic and basil. Cook 1 minute.
• Combine the tomatoes and wine in a bowl. Slowly pour the mixture over the meat.
• Stir in the tablespoon of salt, a grinding of pepper, and the sugar.
• Cover the pot, bring the sauce to a boil, then lower the heat to simmer, and cook the sauce until the meat is fork tender, about 1 1/2 hours.
• Remove the meat to a dish. Cover the dish, and refrigerate the meat to make it easier to cut when cold.
• When ready to use, transfer the round steak to a cutting board, and cut the strings from the round steak with a kitchen scissors.
• Cut into neat slices about 1/4-1/2" thick.
• Add to the sauce. Cut the meat off the bones of the spareribs and add the pieces to the sauce.
• Use the sauce for pasta dishes both boiled and baked.

Steps:

• 1. In a heavy 5-quart pot over moderately high heat, heat the oil until hot but not smoking. Season the beef with salt and sear it, turning occasionally, until deep brown on all sides, about 10 minutes. Add the chile, garlic, and onion, and continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until the onion begins to tenderize, about 5 minutes. Add the tomato paste, wine, and tomatoes, and bring to a boil.
• 2. Cover the pot with a tight-fitting lid, reduce the heat to low, and simmer until the meat is very tender, 3 to 4 hours. The finished sauce should be a deep, rich red color. (The sauce is ready to combine with the fettuccine now, or you can cool and store it in the refrigerator up to 4 days.)
• 3. Bring a large pot of salted water to a rolling boil. Add the fettuccine and stir to submerge and separate it. Cook according to the package directions until al dente.
• 4. Drain the fettuccine, shaking well to remove any excess water, and transfer to a large serving bowl. Add the sauce and toss together until the pasta is evenly coated. Serve at once with the braised meat as desired.

Steps:

• Heat olive oil in a large 6qt heavy bottomed sauté pan (make sure you have a tight fitting lid for later or worst case scenario, be prepared to later cover your pan tightly with foil) over medium-high heat.
• Pat the meat dry with paper towels to remove any moisture. Season the meat with salt and ground pepper and brown both sides in your heated pan. When the meat hits the pan it should sizzle. If it does not sizzle, it means your pan is not hot enough. Alternatively, if your pan is too hot, the olive oil will start smoking and, then well, you can start a nice little kitchen fire. Just keep the pan on medium/high heat, throw in one cube of beef as a test and if it makes a friendly but not aggressive sizzle, add the rest of your beef. The beef should fit in one layer with plenty of space in your pan. Based on the size of your pan, you may need to brown the meat in two sets. If your meat is over crowded it will steam and not brown which is no good for this sauce. (If you want to know why from a more authoritative scientific source than me, go look up Harold McGee + Maillard Reaction.).
• Once you have browned all of your beef, remove and place in shallow bowl so as to collect accumulated juices. Turn the heat slightly down to medium and add diced pork to the pan, allowing it to render fat but not brown (about three minutes).
• Add diced onion to pork, coat in fat and cook until translucent, but not brown, (about three to five minutes depending on how finely you have diced your onion). Stir occasionally with a wooden spoon to prevent browning.
• Once the onion is translucent and NOT one moment before, add the garlic. If you add the garlic too soon it will quickly burn and ruin your entire sauce. If there is one way to ruin a meal and simultaneously piss off the entire country of Italy, it is too serve sauce with burnt garlic. Stir the garlic in the pork/onion mixture for about 60 seconds. If the garlic is starting to turn golden, add the wine, like, NOW!
• Now that you have a mixture of fat, onion and garlic in your skillet, you have what is called a soffritto in Italian. Slowly add the wine to your soffritto. Deglaze the pan by stirring with a wooden spoon to release all the brown bits that are probably sticking to it by now. The wine should reduce by one half.
• When your wine is finished reducing, return the beef and its accumulated juices to the pan and add the whole tomatoes and their juices.
• Add the oregano, bay leaf (and if you have it, the outer rind of parmesan cheese), stir the beef to coat with sauce mixture and bring to a boil.
• Once you have brought your ragù to a boil, lower the heat to a faint simmer, cover and cook for three hours. Ever so occasionally stir the sauce with a wooden spoon and break down the whole tomatoes as you stir. If you find that your ragù is drying out a bit you can add ½ cup of cold water and stir to incorporate. (NOTE: if you want to make this sauce in a slow cooker you can prepare through this step and then put in the slow cooker according to manufacturer instructions: generally on low setting for six hours and high setting for three hours. Don't worry about stirring throughout braising process with this method but make sure to break up the tomatoes when the sauce is done slow cooking).
• When your ragù has simmered for about three hours, it's time to bring your pasta water to a rolling boil. Add salt to the boiling pasta water. For most Italians, the rule of thumb is 1 liter of water for every 100 grams of pasta, and add to that 10 grams of salt (known as the 1000/ 100/ 10 ratio of water/pasta/salt). If you want to actually measure out your water, salt and pasta go for it. I just bring a lot of water to boil, add a generous amount of salt and test to see if the water tastes brackish.
• Once the salted pasta water is boiling viciously, add the penne, stir with fork so they don't stick together and cook to al dente (usually about ten minutes for penne, and you can always taste the pasta if you are unsure). Do not be tempted to add olive oil to your boiling water. It will create an oil slick that will prevent the ragù from adhering to the pasta. You only add olive oil to fresh pasta, which is more delicate and has a tendency to clump together without the aid of olive oil.
• When penne is cooked to al dente, drain it immediately and reserve about five tablespoons of pasta water.
• Uncover your ragù, remove the bay leaf/ parmesan rind. Now add the drained penne and the reserved pasta water immediately (do not allow the pasta to rest and thusly become flaccid in a colander).
• Raise the heat to medium high and stir with a wooden spoon to coat penne with sauce. If you are dexterous in the wrist, instead of stirring the pasta to coat you can flip it in the pan (this is the preferred Neapolitan method). Stir and cook for about one minute. This step of mixing the pasta and ragù is critical as it coats the pasta with the sauce and creates a unified dish.
• Plate your penne ragù (I prefer using a shallow bowl), add a few gratings of Parmesan to taste, basil garnish and serve warm with bread.