Ragu recipe
Ragu recipe, the bolognese meat sauce Italians most use to prepare lasagna and other baked pasta. This basic ragu recipe needs long time cooking but it is pretty simple to prepare.
This Italian meat sauce originates from Bologna, that's why it is often called "bolognese".
It's curious that if you ask a Bologna citizen about "pasta bolognese", they will tell you that it doesn't exist!
For them it's just a ragu sauce. To the rest of the world it is "bolognese" (that means from Bologna).
As it spread and was copied all over the world, it acquired different meanings and recipes, but the traditional ragu is the one that is cooked for about 7 hours. The first time I ate it, I thought it might be a heavy dish, with all that cooking time. But not so! It was easily digestible and totally delightful!
Ragu comes from the French word (ragout) which means ’awake the appetite’. It is used to name a pasta sauce usually made of tomato and meat.
Ingredients (4 people):
• 1 minced carrot
• 1 minced onion
• 1 stick of celery, minced
• 6 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
• 2 cups of ground meat (veal, but you can also mix veal and pork)
• 1 or 2 glasses of a good red wine
• 1 tablespoon of tomato puree (passata)
• 2 cups of broth
• salt
How to prepare:
Fry the minced carrot, onion and celery with the extra virgin olive oil until softened. Before it begins to brown, add the ground meat and mix well, using a fork to distribute the meat thoroughly among the ingredients, to avoid creating meatballs.Add the wine (it's better to use a good wine, maybe the same one you're going to drink with your ragu dish).
When the wine evaporates, add the tomato puree and half a glass of water. Mix it all well and lower the gas to minimum heat. Once in a while, as the liquid cooks away, add a little of the broth and continue like this for the next couple of hours.
The friend, who introduced me to ragu recipe, used to leave the gas on minimum and go to bed, so it cooked throughout the night. I do not advise you to do the same, as I think it is very dangerous as we always have to be careful with gas. However, it gives you an idea of how long it needs to cook, and how low the gas must be.
When it's done, it will have a rust color and will be ready to season your pappardelle, the ideal pasta shapes for this spaghetti meat sauce recipe.
You can personalize it using other kind of meats to prepare it. During Autumn/Wintertime, prepare a ragu recipe using hare meat to dress pappardelle pasta.
tip: Before mixing it with the pasta, add a piece of butter and mix well.
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