RAGU alla Bolognese - Italian Meat and Tomato Sauce

One of the most famous Italian sauces is RAGU. It's also known as Ragu alla Bolognese or sometimes even just Bolognese (abroad and not in Italy).
In Italy every dish has it's own regional origin, Ragu comes from the Italian region called Emilia-Romagna with it's main city - Bologna, from which Ragu takes it's name: Ragu alla Bolognese.
Ragu is a meat-base sauce with the add of tomato and not vice versa as it's cooked in other countries. So there's more meat then tomato in this sauce. The other difference is that the original Ragu is simmered for many hours and believe me you will feel the difference.... They used to cook Ragu on a wood stove even for 6 hours! 
Ragu traditionally dresses the wide long formats of pasta as Tagliatelle, Fettuccine, Pappardelle. It is also very popular as an ingredient of Lasagna. Sometimes you may find the short pasta like Rigatoni, Penne or Paccheri (on the photo) with Ragu. And as a very special way of using ragu is to stuff the big formats of pasta like Lumaconi (snails) and cook them in the oven with mozzarella and Parmigiano cheese....
Two more things to let you know:
1. Some people think that Ragu is a kind of meat stew... it's not! It's a sauce.
2. Ragu is never served with Spaghetti in Italy as the meat pieces will not stick to this kind of pasta. 
Be patient with this sauce and the taste will be rewarding!!!
  
 
INGREDIENTS:
Servings: 1.8-2l of sauce
 
800-900g minced mixed meat (beef-pork)
4 sausages (400g)
700ml tomato puree
2 carrots
1 big onion
2 celery stalks
1 bay leaf
1 rosemary sprig
200ml red wine
veg. stock cube 
salt
pinch of sugar 
100ml EVO oil

The quantity I prepare is very generous, but as this sauce is very laborious to prepare I prefer to cook a bit more and then store it...

Note: Before you start cooking, as for the pan, use a thick bottom one, as the cooking process is long and we don't want the sauce to stick to the bottom of the pan....
  

1. Chop onion and celery finely.
2. Grate the carrot. Or as an option you may chop everything with an electric chopper.
3. Pour some EVO oil into a big sauce pan and add carrots, onion, celery and simmer till the vegetables are golden brown.

 4. Peel the sausage and break it into tiny pieces, add it to the meat that you put in a bowl and mix well.
5. Add the minced meat to the veges, stir vigorously to have a homogeneous mixture.

6. Splash with some red wine and let the alcohol evaporate, smell it to feel if there's still some alcohol.

7. Cook till the meat will become lighter in colour, for about 15 minutes at a medium heat.
8. Prepare vegetable broth (use a stock cube).  

7. Add tomato puree and half a glass of vegetable broth to the meat mix and stir. Add a pinch of sugar together with tomato puree to neutralize the acidity of tomato.
8. Add a bay leaf, rosemary sprig and vegetable stock.

 9. Cover the sauce with a lid and cook at a low heat stirring from time to time (every 10-15 minutes). When you notice that the sauce becomes too thick, add half a glass of broth (better unsalted veg. broth) and stir.

10. Add 1/2 teaspoon of salt and try if you feel the sauce needs more.
11. From the moment you added tomato puree, cook for at least 2 hours, constantly stirring and adding broth to dilute.
Note: I usually cook this sauce for 2-3 hours but traditionally it was cooked for 6-8 hours.

Note: The secrets of this sauce are:
- using mixed mince,
- stirring constantly, about every 10 minutes,
- cooking at a low heat,
- adding some water or better vegetable broth (unsalted) when needed,
- cooking from two to three hours. 

12.  When the sauce is ready it will have a thick and granular consistency, reddish brown colour and a rich flavour that will fill in the whole your house....

Note: You may divide the sauce into portions and freeze them, then you will have a ready sauce when you need it! 
   
  
 

Sausage with Tomato Sauce

Typical winter sauce for winter meals... and a perfect companion for Polenta. You will find the recipe of polenta HERE. 
If you have a nice loaf of fresh bread, be sure you will finish it all with this wonderful dish, dipping the bread slices into the thick tomato sauce...
 
INGREDIENTS:
Servings: 3

6 sausages
1/2 onion
1 carrot
1 celery stalk
600 ml tomato purèe
salt 
sugar 
EVO oil

1. Chop the vegetables and cook them in a frying pan with some olive oil.
 

2. Cut the skin of the sausages and peel it out.
3. Add the sausages to the vegetables and cook them together for a couple of minutes.

4. Add tomato purèe to the pan with the sausages. Add about a third of a glass of water to the sauce. It will let it cook for longer and the sauce will reach it's full taste.
5. Add a pinch of sugar to the sauce.
Note: In order to balance the acidity of tomato you need to add some sugar to the sauce. Every brand of tomato purèe will need different amount of sugar.
6. Add some salt to the sauce.
7. Keep cooking at a low heat for about 20 minutes. 
If the sauce gets too dry add a splash of water.

I served Sausages and Tomato sauce with polenta (corn flour porridge), you can find the recipe HERE.

Polenta - Italian Corn flour Porridge

Spring is arriving and Polenta will be my farewell to winter... This dish really suites the cold period of the year. They usually serve it in winter or in the mountains' restaurants when it's cold. Polenta is substantial, gives a lot of energy and heats the body. Especially if you serve it with some nice and fatty sauce...
Polenta is an original dish from the northern regions of Italy. In the past it was also used to substitute bread: they prepared it really thick and when it was already cold, cut it in slices and toasted it. 

INGREDIENTS:
Servings: 2

1 glass corn flour (not the instant type)
4.5 glasses of water
1/2 teaspoon salt

Note: If you use an instant type of polenta, I mean the one that cooks in about 5 minutes, then consult the instructions on the package.
 

1. Bring the water to boiling in a sauce pan.
2. When the water is boiling stir in the corn flour using a hand whisk, they say in Italy "as rain falls", I cannot invent a better term...
3. Add salt and whisk.

4. Keep stirring and cook your polenta for about 25-30 minutes at a very low heat, constantly stirring.


5. When polenta is ready serve it immediately with the sauce and grated Parmigiano and ENJOY it's nice heating effect on your cold and numb body... And don't forget about a glass of nice red wine!

Polenta is always served with a thick sauce and one of the most classical ones is the Tomato sauce with the Sausage. You can find the recipe HERE.

    

Eggplant Parmigiana

The main ingredient of this dish may mislead to an idea that it is dietetic, but it's quite caloric as the eggplants are fried before cooking the dish. Though it's really delicious!!!
The name comes from the use of Parmigiano cheese in the recipe. Sometimes you can find varieties of Parmigiana, prepared with zucchini or other vegetables, but the original one is prepared with eggplants. 
  
INGREDIENTS: 
Servings: 4

800g (or so) eggplants
3-4 large slices of ham
250g Mozzarella cheese
100g Parmigiano cheese
500ml tomato purèe
1/2 onion
1/2 stalk of celery
1 carrot
salt
sugar
EVO oil  
 

1. Slice eggplants 1cm thin or a bit less, salt every slice and put them into a colander. Place a saucepan full of water on the eggplants in order to press them.
2. After half an hour remove the eggplant slices. They may become a bit darker in colour and moister as they release their juice. 
 
3. Fry the eggplants with the EVO oil and let them cool down. I usually use a non-stick pan to avoid having the eggplants too oily, I add just a bit of oil.

4. While the eggplants are cooling we'll cook a tomato sauce. This is a typical simple tomato sauce that you can use for pasta as well.
Chop onion and celery finely, grate carrot and cook it with some EVO oil till the mix becomes gold.

5. Add tomato purèe, couple of pinches of sugar and half a vegetable stock cube.  Dilute with some water (100ml or so).
6. Simmer the sauce till it becomes dense, try if it's salty enough. 

Note: Tomato sauce for this dish should be a bit drier. If it's too liquid, the dish will result in being watery as the dish also contains mozzarella cheese and this type of cheese has a lot of liquid in it.

7. Take mozzarella cheese out of it's whey and squeeze the remaining whey out. This prevents the dish from being too watery.
Note: As a hint, you can use mozzarella that is used for pizza, it's drier and is sold without whey. But PLEASE don't take GRATED mozzarella. If you use this Italian cheese, I'd like to let you know, that it doesn't exist grated in Italy!!!
8. So, cut mozzarella into small cubes. Grate Parmigiano cheese.  
  

9. Let's start joining the ingredients. In a ceramic or glass pan pour some EVO oil and some tomato sauce and place the fried eggplants as the first layer, then comes the sauce, ham slices ripped in pieces, after that add a handful of Mozzarella and sprinkle everything generously with grated Parmigiano.
 
 10. Repeat the layers, add more Parmigiano on top to have a nice crust.
 


This is how Parmigiana layers look like from the side.

11. Cook your Parmigiana in the oven at 200C for about 30 minutes.
   

Note: This is an original recipe but to enrich the recipe you can also add to the dish sautèed mushrooms and sliced eggs on each layer. 

Penne pasta with Cuttlefish sause

Open the fridge, check for the ingredients and then decide about the recipe - that's my cooking motto. Some basic ingredients are always there, the others change. Today I have fresh cuttlefish as it was on offer at my trusted fishmonger's.   




INGREDIENTS:
Servings: 2

300g cuttlefish (1 small or half a big one)
160g Penne pasta
50g black olives
3-4 pinches of capers
2 garlic cloves
200-250 ml canned chopped tomatoes
some white wine 
half veg stock  
chilli
oregano
salt
sugar
EVO oil  

1. First we cook the sauce. For that cut garlic cloves into halves and fry them till they're gold in some EVO oil.

2. Cut cuttlefish body into very thin stripes and leave the tentacles as they are, we'll use them as a decoration.
3. Add cuttlefish to the frying pan with oil and garlic and add a splash of white wine. When the alcohol is evaporated add half a glass of water and half a veg stock, capers and olives and cook for 10 minutes.

4. Now it's time for tomatoes: add tomato pulp from a can or if you have fresh tomatoes you may add 3 middle tomatoes cut in cubes (you need to emerge the whole tomatoes into boiling water for a couple of minutes and then into cold water, then peel them accurately and cut).
5. Tomatoes contain acid so we need to balance it with some sugar: add couple of pinches of sugar to the sauce and some salt to taste. Add also some chilli and oregano.

6. Cook the sauce for 20 more minutes adding some water when it becomes too dry.

7. Meanwhile boil water for pasta and cook penne pasta until "al dente".



8. Mix pasta with the sauce and serve. You may decorate your plate with the cuttlefish tentacles from the sauce...