Dear Reader, We have a

Dear Reader,

We have a lot to talk about, as I have been ignoring you for the past two days (except for those two little posts below). Well, I wasn't ignoring you; I was writing to you, and that is the problem. I was writing and writing and writing and, well, what has happened is something too big for a single post. In the next couple of days I will break it up and let the fun and games begin. Music, moral theology, cultural criticism, oh boy!

I will have time for this, because I had already planned on writing bullfight reviews, but the rain has taken care of that for me (Waaaaaaaaaah! Rain, rain, go away! Little Erik wants to eat linguiça and watch bulls and horsies), so I have time to write on other things.

Since I will not be watching bovines, the featured recipes for the week will be centered somewhat around bovines, specifically ragù. Because a good ragù is the foundation of Central Italian Cooking, I am going to give you precise directions. If you follow them, you will have a perfect ragù. My ragù is surpassed by none. There are plenty that are equal, but I have yet to find one better. This is through no merit of my own, I simply use a recipe that was handed down through the family and perfected for centuries. My guess is that the last change was made in the 16th century, with the addition of tomatoes, but it is possible that there was a little tinkering with. Feel free to tinker, but I really doubt that you can make it have a deeper, richer, meatier taste. If you somehow make it better, please let me know. The fact that the Tuscan ragù has yet to be surpassed does not mean that it won’t be tomorrow.

Throughout the week I will be posting recipes for using the giant pot of ragù (gobbi trippati, lasagna, polenta, sedano in ragù, etc.).

So... without further ado, I give you ragù!

1 oz dried porcini mushrooms
3 Tlb butter, extra virgin olive oil, or rendered goose fat
1/3 lb pancetta, thinly sliced, and finely chopped
4 peeled whole cloves of garlic
1 medium yellow onion, finely diced
2 large carrots, peeled and finely diced
2 stalks of celery, finely diced
2 tsp fresh thyme leaves, chopped finely
2 lbs. lean pork in cubes
2 lbs. lean beef in cubes
2 salt packed anchovies (you can use oil packed if you have to, but I really recommend the salt packed ones – a can lasts a long time, and they are much better)
1 chicken liver, chopped finely (may even be run through a strainer – the point is to have the liver flavor the whole ragù, not to have any little pieces to bite on.
1 Tbl extra virgin olive oil
2 Mediterranean bay leaves, broken in large pieces
1 box of Pomi chopped tomatoes from Italy (they are the best, although 6 in 1 ground tomatoes from Escalon, California is good, too)
Half a bottle of good red wine
1 pint good brown chicken stock (please make your own or buy it from a good butcher. The canned stuff is a salty abomination)
Fresh cracked pepper (preferably melange, a chef’s blend of black, white, pink, and Jamaican (allspice) peppers)
Sea Salt.

Place the dried mushrooms in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Let them sit for at least 20 minutes. In a different bowl, place the salt-packed anchovies and cover with cold water. Let stand.

Either chop your pork and beef by hand (using a super-sharp chef’s knife), or use a meat grinder. The advantages to chopping by hand are that the irregularity can be pleasing, and the knife will respect the integrity of the cells of the meat, thus preserving juiciness (although, considering the length of the cooking, this might be a bit irrelevant). Using a meat grinder, especially the one that attaches to the kitchen aide, is faster and easier. If you must, you can even buy pre-ground meat, although you will never know where it has been, and what has been ground with it. Only buy pre-ground meat from a butcher you trust. Mix the pork and beef.

Drain the mushrooms, straining and reserving the juice. Chop them finely.

In a large, well-seasoned cast iron pot warm your 3 Tbl of fat. When it is hot, but not smoking, gently fry the pancetta. As the pancetta is browning, add the four garlic cloves. Stir them around in the frying pancetta for a minute and add the onion. Fry for two minutes and add the carrots and celery and the mushrooms and the thyme. Fry for several minutes.

Add the meat, stirring it so that it is thoroughly mixed with the vegetables and let brown. Since you have 4 lbs of meat along with vegetables, your best bet is to let it sit, turn it, let it sit, stir it and so forth, until it is done. It will brown to a point, but then juice from the meat and vegetables will just make it gray, but that is ok. You want is to be cooked. The wine will give a brown color.

While the meat is browning, filet the anchovies and chop the filets finely. Make a paste of the chicken liver and the filets. Fry them in a separate pan with the 1 Tsb of olive oil until they are thoroughly cooked. You can plop the fried paste on your cutting board and give it a few quick passes with the super sharp chef’s knife if you want. Add this to the meat.

Add in the tomatoes and pour the wine into the tomato box. Swish it around and pour it into the ragù. Add the bay leaves and chicken stock. Reduce heat and simmer for at least four hours, skimming unnecessary fat off, as needed. I made my ragù around 4pm last night and went to a concert of some of the artists on Arhoolie Records (more about that later – in short, WOW! What a show – the best of the Sacred Steel musicians on one stage in an intimate hall), not getting back until around 11pm. I could smell my grandmother’s kitchen 30 feet outside the closed front door! I knew it was right.

When it smells so good you want to dig in, taste it and add salt and pepper, as needed, stirring it in and retasting it as you add. The texture of the meat may surprise you (it is very well done, basically), but realize that the ragù is a sauce base, and will be used with tomato sauce, with cream, with béchamel, mornay and other additives.

The ragù can be frozen or canned. If you keep it in the refrigerator, just make sure that it is heated to 195 degrees and held for 10 minutes every week or so.

Tomorrow we will make a sauce from the ragù with cream and marsala and serve it over penne rigati!

Posted by erik at April 28, 2003 5:06 PM | TrackBack