Let's Discuss Italian Ragu

[Adam Balic]

Great photographs thank you. I think that my version would have been as red as yours, except that I followed the instructions "cook, stirring often, until the tomato has become quite dark, almost black". Next time I will not process that tomato so much.

[russ parsons]

i'm not sure i'd cut back adam. maybe it's a difference in taste, but i like my ragu more the color of yours. to quote the francesconi recipe for ragu napoletano, the sauce should be "scurrissima, untuosa, lucida e densa", which i would loosely translate as "very dark, unctuous, shiny and thick."

[Kevin72]

I agree, though PN's looks incredible. When I made my Napoletani Ragu I found it a little too thin and wound up reducing it. It picked up a darker color but I liked the intensity of flavor. In fact the darker, "almost black" part seems to be part of some tradition or another since one of my cookbooks calls this sort of braise "in the Black".

[Adam Balic]

Hi Russ - you know this has been an interesting exercise and I have learnt a new recipe technique, but I think that I am still have no clear idea of what is now made in Naples, compared to the when the recipe was originally published.

I noticed that in your version of the ragu that you cut back on the amount of lard make it 'brighter'. I'm not sure if this refers to colour of flavour, but my impression on making this dish was that the large amount of lard was important to get Maillard reactions etc and therefore some specific flavours and colours?

I'm not sure actually if any of this matters in the end. Sure, I think that if you are going to produce a traditional recipe then you should try to be as faithful to the recipe as possible, but for a dish like this the final results are always going to be part of a spectrum. It is interesting how different people can read the same text, have the same intentions and come out with different results. One reason why not to write cookbooks I guess.

It has been an interesting thread for me and I now think that I will tell some Italians that their favoured dish is actually French at least once a month so that I can learn some more in depth details on Italian cooking.

[Pontormo]

Thank you, all who contributed their photographed stages of making a version of an authentic ragu.

As for that reference to a secret ingredient...

[russ parsons]

I noticed that in your version of the ragu that you cut back on the amount of lard make it 'brighter'. I'm not sure if this refers to colour of flavour, but my impression on making this dish was that the large amount of lard was important to get Maillard reactions etc and therefore some specific flavours and colours?

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the brightness referred to the flavor: "directness" may have been a better word. maillard is certainly involved in the browning of the meat, but i'd be skeptical as to whether the quantity of fat was involved in that. maybe more important in this dish is caramelization, since it is the tomato sauce that is turning color from red to brick. quantity of fat would not have anything to do with that either. time is the key factor, as i think your experiment illustrated.

[Adam Balic]

Lets see I used 200 grams of preserved lard, so the onions were absolutely swimming in the fat. As you cook it you can 'hear' the change in the cooking, going from a boiling to a frying stage as the water evaporates. The onion etc has a lot of sugar, but there are also proteins from the onions, meat and tomato, so I said maillard rather then caramelization, but actually I don't really know the exact process involved.

The long cooking times are because this is how long it takes to reduce all the liquid companants, rather then the actual braising time. I reckon that the fat is the critical part of the recipe as this is what makes the dish different from a typical braise/pot roast. The onion et al., frys in the fat, this is a really different process to a more liquid braise, the only recipe I could think of that is similar is the Sumatran Style Beef Rendang, if you look at the link you can see that there are two ways of preparing a rendang, one method gives you a typical braise, the other gives you a dish which has a frying step and the final dishes are very different in character.

This is what I think is happening in this dish, but this may just be because I am really craving some Indonesian food at the moment.

[vserna]

Just as a sideline, let me mention a, to me, new and certainly different type of ragù I tasted a couple of days ago in Madrid, at Boccondivino, Ignazio Deias' distinguished Sardinian restaurant (one of the best places in Spain for Italian food, and that's saying something because the level of Italian food has improved spectacularly here.) This was a 'ragù sardo' based on crumbled, hearty sausage meat, much fennel and, of course, tomatoes. Ignazio serves it, not with pasta, but on top of a rich risotto made with Sardinian saffron. Outstanding dish for a luncheon in chilly Madrid...

Edited December 13, 2005 by vserna (log)

[Pizza Napoletana]

When you guys will se a proper conserva, you will understand what she meant by scurissimo... I did not use even a concentrate for mine, as I had 2.5kg of pure San Marzano home made passata that I wanted to use.

I do agree that the colour in old and modern ragú should be darker then mine, but the one in Adam post looks brown, or exactly the colour of Genevose, which is made with 2kg of Onions and little tomatoes paste (concentrate).

Ragu is made with 1/2-1 onion and 400g of tomato paste or 2.5 kg of passata. Even starting with a passata, you have to reduced, and then add more water, then reduced again, etc.... mine was cooked for 7 hours....

I will do one with Conserva and show you the differences after Christmas.

Ciao

[balex]

When you guys will se a proper conserva, you will understand what she meant by scurissimo... I did not use even a concentrate for mine, as I had 2.5kg of pure San Marzano home made passata that I wanted to use.

I do agree that the colour in old and modern ragú should be darker then mine, but the one in Adam post looks brown, or exactly the colour of Genevose, which is made with 2kg of Onions and little tomatoes paste (concentrate).

Ragu is made with 1/2-1 onion and 400g of tomato paste or 2.5 kg of passata. Even starting with a passata, you have to reduced, and then add more water, then reduced again, etc.... mine was cooked for 7 hours....

I will do one with Conserva and show you the differences after Christmas.

Ciao

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But Adam did his with 'strattu, which is great but of course not Neapolitan but Sicilian. I don't know what the Neapolitan equivalent of this is, if it exists?

There should be a thread on strattu if there isn't already. I used to go to Palermo at least once a year just to buy this stuff, (and have a panino with milza of course).

[balex]

Just as a sideline, let me mention a, to me, new and certainly different type of ragù I tasted a couple of days ago in Madrid, at Boccondivino, Ignazio Deias' distinguished Sardinian restaurant (one of the best places in Spain for Italian food, and that's saying something because the level of Italian food has improved spectacularly here.) This was a 'ragù sardo' based on crumbled, hearty sausage meat, much fennel and, of course, tomatoes. Ignazio serves it, not with pasta, but on top of a rich risotto made with Sardinian saffron. Outstanding dish for a luncheon in chilly Madrid...

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This is another thing. You make it with fennel seeds, garlic and chilli, fried together, and then crumbled italian sausages (skinned that are browned) and then pelati. Very good, and much quicker than ragu (oops, I meant bolognese sauce).

[balex]

Great thread. Of course, we could talk about ragù indefinitely. Marco Guarnaschelli Gotti in his excellent Grande Enciclopedia Illustrata della Gastronomia lists seven different ones: abbruzzese, barese, bolognese, napoletano, potentino, romagnolo and sardo.

It seems to me a little inane to quibble over the primogeniture of a term derived from the French...

To get back to the hard facts, as Adam so aptly did with his well illustrated post, I believe that a great ragù alla bolognese (wasn't this the original topic?) ought to be made with a rather fatty cut of beef and pork (something like coppa).

Then, both the vegetables and later the meat should be let caramelize (without burning it!) My grandma used to say that to have good ragù the meat had "to suffer", in other words to cook and cook, sticking a little on the bottom, being rescued patiently with careful additions of stock or water.

Finally, there should be a law prohibiting the use of the term ragù for any meat sauce that has been cooked for less than 4 hours. While of course everybody's free to eat whatever hits his fancy, ragù alla bolognese must die over tagliatelle.

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I apologise for three posts in a row, but this is an important topic..

I always thought that browning onions for these sauces was considered very wrong. I am sure I recall being told by some cook I respected, that if the onions brown at all, you have to throw them all out and start again. Long slow cooking so they are very soft and sweet and tender, but not caramelised. I will put on my asbestos underpants now, because I am sure people will disagree rabidly.

[Adam Balic]

When you guys will se a proper conserva, you will understand what she meant by scurissimo... I did not use even a concentrate for mine, as I had 2.5kg of pure San Marzano home made passata that I wanted to use.

I do agree that the colour in old and modern ragú should be darker then mine, but the one in Adam post looks brown, or exactly the colour of Genevose, which is made with 2kg of Onions and little tomatoes paste (concentrate).

Ragu is made with 1/2-1 onion and 400g of tomato paste or 2.5 kg of passata. Even starting with a passata, you have to reduced, and then add more water, then reduced again, etc.... mine was cooked for 7 hours....

I will do one with Conserva and show you the differences after Christmas.

Ciao

←

I used 200 gm of onion, so not as much as Genevose. The colour is partially the photograph (artificial lights) and due to me cooking off the tomato in the lard until "scurrissima, untuosa, lucida e densa".

If anybody ever visits Edinburgh we can have a cook off.

[Pizza Napoletana]

I am sure that the light may be playing us a trick, however I would like to point out that the scurissima, still means dark red and not brown.

But Adam did his with 'strattu, which is great but of course not Neapolitan but Sicilian. I don't know what the Neapolitan equivalent of this is, if it exists?

strattu-conserva

Everywhere in the south we used tomatoes paste in the winter. Neapolitan conserva is most probably the first example.

I think Adam has used a commercial tomato paste concentrate, strattu-conserva is something else. Adam, please correct me if I have missed the part where you explained which tomatopaste you had used.

Ciao

[Adam Balic]

But Adam did his with 'strattu, which is great but of course not Neapolitan but Sicilian. I don't know what the Neapolitan equivalent of this is, if it exists?

mple.

I think Adam has used a commercial tomato paste concentrate, strattu-conserva is something else. Adam, please correct me if I have missed the part where you explained which tomatopaste you had used.

Ciao

←

See my original post "At this stage the tomato is added. I used a preserved tomato paste I bought in Syracuse (looks like dark red/brown putty)". I think this must me the 'stattu' you are talking about, I bought it in the Syracuse market a couple of years ago, where is wa sold in the open, it is not commercial tomato paste. Not sure how much of this I used, it was the last of what I had, so maybe 100-150 gms?

I asked about 'triple concentrate' (or should that be double concentrate?) in a later post as this is the most concentrated tomato paste I am likely to get access to in the future.

[Adam Balic]

But Adam did his with 'strattu, which is great but of course not Neapolitan but Sicilian. I don't know what the Neapolitan equivalent of this is, if it exists?

mple.

I think Adam has used a commercial tomato paste concentrate, strattu-conserva is something else. Adam, please correct me if I have missed the part where you explained which tomatopaste you had used.

Ciao

←

See my original post "At this stage the tomato is added. I used a preserved tomato paste I bought in Syracuse (looks like dark red/brown putty)". I think this must me the 'stattu' you are talking about, I bought it in the Syracuse market a couple of years ago, where is wa sold in the open, it is not commercial tomato paste. Not sure how much of this I used, it was the last of what I had, so maybe 100-150 gms?

I asked about 'triple concentrate' (or should that be double concentrate?) in a later post as this is the most concentrated tomato paste I am likely to get access to in the future.

So somewhere between the colour of my ragu and yours is the correct colour. I think that the Napes Women's Guild should prepare a colour chart of the correct colour for a ragu, as it would save much discussion.

[Pizza Napoletana]

Sorry, I have missed that!!!

Anyway as consistency and colour, the conserva is very similar to "Sainsbury" Tomato paste double concentrate of which I suggest to use still 400-600g.

Ciao

[Scarpetta]

[Franci]

If anybody is interested, here is also my version of ragu' di carne. In my town, Taranto in Puglia, we call it sugo di carne.

There is not one recipe, dipending from the pasta used, the meat cuts can be different. If it's for orecchiette, we usually make the ragu' con bracioline di cavallo (horsemeat's rolls) or a little piece of wildboard fresh guanciale.

If is for maccheroni or penne we usually mix cuts: a little bit of castrato, some fresh pancetta, a piece of pork, or especially in my small town we use a lot of kid or lamb, so it's possible to have just sugo di agnello.

For the braciole di cavallo is very simple: thin slices from the rump, beaten with the flat side of the chef knife, a little bit of salt, a little piece of cheese, usually pecorino staginato, some parsley and fresh black pepper, roll and tie well.

No matter which cuts are used, the procedure is the same: saute' very well the meat in good evo from puglia, keep the meat aside, soften the onion in the oil, return the meat to the pot and deglace with primitivo. Start adding the tomatoes a couple of laddle at the time, when the sauce turn dark, add more laddle. Bring to a boild, add salt and simmer for no less then 2-3 hours. I used peeled canned tomatoes and sometimes a little bit of concentrato. We do not use garlic or basil or other herbs.

[marons]

The original posting asked also where we might have had good versions "elsewhere". For New Yorkers (or visitors), the ragu in the restaurant "al di la" in Park Slope in Brooklyn is outstanding in my view. We've been fans of the place for years, and, coincidently, last Wednesday's Times gave it a lovely review.

[stephenc]

I'm not even Italian, just from Philly.

Am I the only one who calls it "gravy?"

I use crushed tomatoes rather than tomato paste. However, I use a small 8 oz can. I also use the slow-cooked bone method popular here.

[Adam Balic]

I have the US 1950 translation of Ada Boni's 'Talisman', it has a recipe for "Beef ragout with gravy", this uses canned tomato (and oddly some sauterne wine). Unfortunately, for some completely unknown reason, none of the Italian names have been left in the book.

[Pan]

I have the US 1950 translation of Ada Boni's 'Talisman', it has a recipe for "Beef ragout with gravy", this uses canned tomato (and oddly some sauterne wine). Unfortunately, for some completely unknown reason, none of the Italian names have been left in the book.

←

If it was put out by Ronzoni and calls for Ronzoni products throughout, it's the same edition my parents have.

[Adam Balic]

I have the US 1950 translation of Ada Boni's 'Talisman', it has a recipe for "Beef ragout with gravy", this uses canned tomato (and oddly some sauterne wine). Unfortunately, for some completely unknown reason, none of the Italian names have been left in the book.

←

If it was put out by Ronzoni and calls for Ronzoni products throughout, it's the same edition my parents have.

←

I don't think so, but it was published for "Crown's International Cook Book Series", which also includes Escoffier, Jewish Cookery by L. Leonard, German Cookery by Schuler etc.

You know there are so many great Italian language cookbooks, I really wish more of them were translated ito English.

[marons]

I have the US 1950 You know there are so many great Italian language cookbooks, I really wish more of them were translated ito English.

I read Italian-----What are the best in Italian?

mike arons