Il ragù della domenica

On this Columbus Day, for some reason I started thinking about my childhood. My passion for food began early, and most of my culinary Ur-memories lead me back to Sunday dinners at nonna Angelina's place. About noontime, after Sunday Mass, the family would congregate around the enormous table (or so it seemed to my young eyes) that took up most of the main room of my grandparents' New York apartment. The men and boys would sit around the table, talk, watch TV and play cards—my favorite card game was called scopa (literally, 'broom', but we called it 'sweep' in English)—while we nibbled on fried vegetables, sharp provolone and the ring-shaped, lard-laced 'Ansonia' bread, and sipped a little sweet vermouth. Meanwhile, Angelina and the other womenfolk would be putting the finishing touches on the food in the kitchen.

Then, just as I would be getting really antsy for the 'real' food, out came the pasta—sometimes a large bowl of pastasciutta but more often than not a sprawling baking dish filled with lasagne di carnevale, followed by a leisurely parade of courses: mixed meats from the ragù, then another meat course like chicken roasted with potatoes and onions, then a green salad—served as a separate course after the meats in the Italian-American fashion—then fruit—which usually included a fennel bulb, my personal favorite 'fruit'—and, in the Fall and Winter, a bowl of nuts in their shells. We would drink very rough homemade wine—never knew who made the stuff—which Angelina and the other older ladies would 'cut' with 7-Up. Finally, out came pastries—cannoli, sfogliatelle, babà al rum and that Italian-American favorite, 'rainbow cookies' made with marzipan, raspberry jam and chocolate. Dinner would end around 6 pm with coffee, served both 'black' (espresso) and 'American', along with small cordial glasses of Anisette. More card playing and much gossiping ensued, followed by sandwiches at 8 o'clock for those who might still be a little hungry...


The constant fixture of all of these dinners was ragù della domenica or 'Sunday sauce'—also known as 'Sunday gravy'—the crowning glory of Italian American cooking. If it was not dressing the pasta, it was slathered in between the layers of the lasagne, with more served in a gravy boat for those who wanted to pour some more on top. Just about every Italo-American I know grew up with this sauce or something very much like it. It is a not-so-distant cousin of the ragù alla napoletana. Whereas the Neapolitan version is made with a single large piece of beef, its American cousin is made with various bits of pork and beef: sausages, beef or pork ribs and meatballs were always included, but you'd often find beef braciole, pig's foot and rolled pig's skin, and sometimes pork chops, in the pot as well, all slowly simmered for hours in tomato sauce until it was dark and unctuous and full of deep flavor.

Ragù requires slow, long cooking, but it is not hard to make. Here is the recipe for Angelina's ragù:

In as big a pot or casserole as you have available, begin by lightly browning your sausages and ribs—and, if using, braciole and pork chops—in lard over medium heat. Yes, you read that right: lard. You can use olive oil if you like, but for the real taste of ragù, lard is a must. (And there is no better fat for browning, by the way.) Brown as many pieces at a time as will fit in your pot in a single, well-spaced layer. (If you crowd the pieces of meat, they will steam and not brown.) Do not rush the process; take your time and brown them gently, so they render their fat and don't darken too much. Remove the pieces to a bowl or dish as they brown, replacing them with other pieces. When all the pieces of meat are brown, remove any remaining in the pot and add a generous amount of chopped onion and allow it to sweat until it is quite soft. Then add a clove or two of chopped garlic and, when you can just begin to smell their aroma, add back the browned meat. Turn the meat with the onion and garlic and simmer them together gently to allow the meat to insaporire (absorb the flavor of the aromatics), seasoning with salt and pepper as you turn. (If you have some spare red wine on hand, add a splash at this point and allow it to evaporate completely. If you don't have red wine, not to worry; Angelina actually didn't add wine to her ragù, but many recipes call for it, and it does add a nice additional layer of flavor.)

Then add the best quality canned tomatoes that you can find, passing them through a food mill into the pot, enough to cover the meats entirely. (Some recipes call for tomato paste, but I find this makes the sauce too heavy.) Nestle a sprig or two of fresh parsley among the meats. Lower the heat, partially cover the pot, and let the sauce to simmer very slowly for at least 2-3 hours, until the sauce is thick and dark and very flavorful. Along the way, add your meatballs, which you will have fried separately in oil, and, if using, your pig's foot or rolled pig's skin.



NOTES: Ragù is best made a day ahead, but you can use it immediately if you like. Extremely versatile, you can use it to dress any kind of pastasciutta—at Angelina's place, it was usually spaghetti, linguine or rigatoni—or ravioli or for making lasagne. With pasta, serve pecorino cheese (not parmesan, whose delicate flavor would be overwhelmed by this robust sauce) for those who want it. This Columbus Day, we celebrated with linguine dressed with ragù, then the meats served as a secondo and a green salad, followed by fruits—an abbreviated modern version of the Sunday dinners of my childhood.


Ragù, along with the meat that simmered in it, is also very good served with polenta, which may sound strange, since polenta is a northern dish, while this ragù is very much in the southern Italian tradition. But, in fact, polenta is not entirely unknown in the center and south of Italy. A dish called polenta con spuntature e salsicce, polenta served with spare ribs and sausages simmered in tomatoes, which tastes very much like this ragù without the meatballs, is a popular Roman specialty. And even Angelina, a daughter of the mountains near Benevento, made polenta to please my grandfather Lorenzo, who had fought against the Austrians in the First World War (later receiving a medal for valor in the Battle of the Vittorio Veneto) and acquired a taste for the stuff while up North...but that is a story for another day.


The reader will probably have noticed that the recipe does not come with measurements. Like many traditional home cooks, Angelina never measured. But I find that using one package of around five or six sausages, as many ribs and meatballs, and one or two other meats if you like, plus two medium onions and two cloves or garlic, plus two large cans of tomatoes, will produce good results. But strict measurements are really not important—and the cook can fell free to adjust amounts as he or she likes. After all, that's one of the ways we home cooks can give on our dishes a personal 'touch'.

To make the meatballs, you use the same mixture of meats, bread, cheese, egg and aromatics that you will find described in the recipe for Angelina's polpettone (meatloaf). But instead of forming a 'loaf' and stuffing it, use the mixture to make round balls and fry them gently in oil. They are wonderful eaten as is, but perhaps even better after simmering for an hour or so in the ragù.

Besides the use of lard, the secrets of a really good ragù are taking your time for gentle, unrushed browning and simmering—this is old-fashioned comfort food that can't be rushed—and using the best canned tomatoes you can find. In the US, and perhaps elsewhere, the latter subject poses a special challenge, important enough to deserve its own post.

There is a raging debate among Italian-Americans about the proper way to translate ragù into English. As mentioned, some people call it 'Sunday sauce', others 'gravy'. Each side holds fervently to its position. The problem is that the two languages do not use coinciding terms. In Italian, what you might generically call a 'sauce' in English can be translated as salsa, sugo, condimento or ragù—the last of which is a special word traditionally only used for this kind of slowly simmering meat-and-tomato sauce (although modern chefs have also come up with fish-based ragù). English, on the other hand, has the terms 'sauce' and 'gravy'. 'Sauce' is a generic term that can be used to describe ragù, while gravy is a special word used to describe the kind of sauce that is made from the drippings of a roast. So, strictly speaking, ragù is not a gravy, but since both gravies and ragù are special kinds of sauces noted for their meatiness, you can see the logic of using one for the other. Personally, I stay out of this debate and just say ragù.

Buying canned tomatoes

Here's a special note for readers in the US, where buying canned tomatoes can be tricky thing.

When I first moved back from Italy, I ran into all sorts of trouble trying to find a brand of canned tomatoes that 'behaved' properly. The main problem being that, for some reason I could not fathom, no matter how much I cooked the canned tomatoes, they never seemed to 'melt' as they should into a sauce. My Italian friends all had the same problem and didn't understand why American tomatoes were so different. I then found out that Americans apparently prefer their canned tomatoes that way, so manufacturers actually add a chemical called calcium chloride to canned tomatoes to prevent them from melting! Of course, when you are using canned tomatoes to make a sauce, firmness (especially artificially induced firmness) is not a positive quality.

The other problem is that canned tomatoes made in the US often have an 'off' taste, which I would describe as sort of 'stewy'. So you need to pick and choose carefully if you want your tomato sauces and other tomato-based dishes to taste as they should.

After much trial and error, I now stick to certain brands of imported Italian canned tomatoes. The best brand I have found here in the US so far is Cento Organic DOP Certified San Marzano tomatoes. As you might know, San Marzano tomatoes, grown in a defined area close to Naples, are considered the finest in Italy, if not the world, particularly for making sauces. (Never mind that the little red farmhouse on the label looks like it belongs in Pennsylvania!) Also quite good are the brands called "Rosa" and "La Valle" which both sell imported San Marzano peeled tomatoes, though neither is 'DOP' ceritified. Bionaturae's Organic Whole Peeled Tomatoes from Tuscany are also quite acceptable.

But even buying imported Italian canned tomatoes is not a panacea. For reasons apparently having to do with US tariffs, Italian canned tomatoes imported into the US come packed in purée rather than simple juice as they are in Italy, so what you get is rather too thick to cook with and needs to be diluted with a bit of water when cooking. Their taste is, unfortunately, not quite as pure as it should be because of the purée, but it is better than having chunks of raw canned tomato in your sauce! (I realize that some people actually like chunky tomato sauce, but that is not what you want in Italian cooking.) Here is where the Cento brand stands out, because its flavor is just as sweet and 'clean' as I remember the pelati in Italy being.

If you either can't find or don't want to spend extra on imported tomatoes—the good ones are not cheap—look either for canned tomatoes without calcium chloride added, just salt, basil and juice, usually called "Italian style". Or look for crushed tomatoes, which gets around the 'melting' issue. Among the US brands, "Redpack" crushed tomatoes, which is the kind that Angelina used—are pretty good, especially for robust sauces like ragù. I recently tried some US made "Colavita" crushed tomatoes and found them not bad. And be careful about tomatoes marked as "San Marzano": some sold here in the US are actually not from Italy at all but are simply the San Marzano varietal of tomato grown here. Somehow, they don't taste the same.

One brand that I unfortunately would not recommend, at least for Italian dishes, is Glen Muir. I had high hopes for their easy-to-find line of organic products but, alas, notwithstanding Cook Illustrated's endorsement, the sample I tried suffered from that funny 'stewy' taste. I have heard good things about their roasted tomatoes, but they are not really appropriate for everyday Italian cooking.

Post scriptum: Some readers have wrote in with some of their favorite brands: a 'Foodbuzz' friend from Italy recommends DOP San Marzano tomatoes from Gerardo di Nola, the renowned pasta-maker. I have not seen them myself here in the US, but a quick internet search shows that there is at least one store in New York that sells them (not sure they ship). Some readers from the US recommend the "Nina" and "Pastene" brands, both imported San Marzano from Italy. ("Nina" brand is available from Costco. I have not seen Pastene where I live, but it is available from various purveyors online.

Seared sea scallops over potato «risotto»

This blog is dedicated to simple home cooking, mostly because that's the kind of cooking—and eating—I like best. But every once and while, the urge to make something 'fancy' strikes. So when a friend from Rome visited last night, I decided to put on the ritz and serve this elegant 'restaurant' dish of seared sea scallops on a bed on potatoes cut into small cubes and simmered with broth to resemble risotto and surrounded by a heavenly cream sauce.

Step 1: Begin by making the sauce: Sweat half a fennel, a leek and 2 shallots, all fined chopped, in some butter until tender. Add a splash of white wine and let that reduce by half. Then add a pint of cream and a few fronds pulled from the fennel stalk. Bring to a boil and simmer until the cream has thickened a bit. Transfer the mixture to a blender and blend at the highest setting (usually 'liquify') until the sauce is completely smooth. Return the sauce to the pan. (If you really want to get fancy, strain the purée through a sieve—but I skipped this step.) If too thick, add a bit more cream or milk until you have the consistency you want. Just before you need it, warm it up again and add another bit butter and minced chives.

Step 2: Then make the mock risotto: Sweat a shallot and a pint of mushrooms in butter until tender. Then add one or two diced potato and a fresh bay leaf. Begin to add chicken stock (or broth) a ladleful at a time and allow to thicken before adding more, just as if you were making an actual risotto. Continue to cook until the potatoes are tender but not mushy—depending on how finely you've cubed your potatoes, this should only take 5 minutes or so. Adjust the seasoning if needed.

Step 3: Finally, just before you are ready to eat, sear your scallops (about 2 per person) in a lightly greased non-stick pan over high heat. About 2 minutes per side should do.

Step 4: Assemble the dish by spooning a portion of the mock risotto in the center of each plate, then surround with the cream sauce and top the risotto with the scallops. Serve immediately.

NOTES: The whole dish, while it involved three separate elements and a final assembly, is actually fairly quick and easy to make. You can make things even easier by making the sauce and risotto ahead and heating them up gently just before you need them.

The original recipe (see below) calls for diver scallops, but last night I used regular sea scallops, which were perfectly delicious. (The centers of the scallops will still be quite 'rare' after this short cooking period. If you are squeamish about semi-raw seafood, then you can let it cook a bit more in a hot oven for, say, 5 minutes—but the scallops will be less sweet when cooked entirely through. Or you can slice each scallop in half across its mid-drift so they cook more quickly.)

The potatoes should be waxy, not mealy, the kind that you would use for potato salad or a gratin, like Yukon Golds. Since the potato is meant to mimic a risotto, it is best to cube it just as finely as you can manage, no more than a millimeter/1/8 inch wide. And, for that special touch, warm the plates before serving.

This recipe comes from Restaurant Eve in Old Town Alexandria, via fellow blogger and Foodbuzzer, "Kiss My Spatula". I have made some adjustments, however, to give this dish a personal touch. The tips and tricks noted above are my own.

Quick Note: Salade frisée à l'anchoiade

One of my favorite cold weather salads back in Rome were puntarelle, a kind of chicory typically dressed with a kind of garlic and anchovy vinaigrette. Fond memories...! This salad is a more refined French cousin, fit for elegant dinners but rustic enough for an everyday dinner. It makes a fine light entrée, a bed for fish or even a contorno for a seafood dish.

There are various ways to make anchoiade. For this vinaigrette-like version, melt some anchovy fillets in just a little bit of olive oil (you can also just melt them in a dry pan) over very low heat, taking care not to actually cook them. Then blend the fillets with a small spoonful of white wine vinegar, salt, freshly ground black pepper and a good pour of olive oil. Taste for balance and adjust the ingredients to your liking. Pour into a bowl or container and add a whole clove of garlic. Let the garlic steep for about an hour or so, remove it before spooning the anchoiade over the frisée. Serve with crusty bread and a crisp white wine.

NOTES: As always, whole anchovies packed in salt will give the best flavor, but fillets packed in olive oil will do fine. If you want a really assertive garlic flavor, you could add the garlic clove to the blender, but this would tend to overwhelm the frisée, which has a fairly delicate taste. I will post some time soon my more rustic mock 'puntarelle', which I use to console myself when I'm feeling nostalgic for that Roman classic.

Gratinéed Ox Tongue in Mushroom Cream Sauce

As mentioned recently, veal tongue is a common part of a bollito misto, but tongue is also a wonderful dish all on its own. Although classified as an organ meat, tongue doesn't taste 'organ-y' at all. Rather it tastes like a richest, most unctuous cut of beef you have ever had. If you haven't tried tongue, you owe it to yourself to do so, at least once.

Ox tongue (also known as beef tongue) is actually tastier than veal tongue, so when made on its own, you might prefer it--provided you have a healthy appetite, since ox tongues are quite large, generally weighing 1.5-2 kilos (3-4 lbs.) or even more. They also take quite a bit longer to cook, 3 hours or more, as opposed to 1-1/2 to 2 hours for the typical veal tongue. You need to pre-boil tongue with the usual odori for that length of time. You then let it cool a bit (you can run it under cold water) and peel off the skin.After boiling, it should come off rather easily. Some recipes tell you to peel the tongue after 20-30 minutes of cooking, which (I suppose) allows the tongue to better absorb the aromatics and possibly cook a bit faster. Allow the tongue to cool completely and then slice horizontally as much as of it as you plan to use for your dish. (Unless you're having dinner for 8, you probably won't be eating the whole thing in one sitting!)

Once pre-boiled, the tongue can be eaten as is--it is marvellous with salsa verde--or simmered in a variety of sauces. In Italian cooking, tomato sauce is an obvious and common choice. But this being Fall and all, I was in the mood for something warming and woodsy, so I made my favorite mushroom cream sauce: thinly slice mushrooms (I used 'baby bellas' but, of course, chanterelles or some other wild mushrooms would make it even better) and saute them quickly in a mixture of olive and butter, season with a bit of salt to encourage them to render their juices. When the liquid has evaporated and the mushrooms have much reduced and are just beginning to brown (as wet heat turns to dry, you will hear the mushrooms start to sizzle) add a buttuto of shallots and parsley, mix well, and sauté for just a minute or two more. (The mushroom cooked this way are wonderful as a side dish, by the way.) Add a ladleful of rich beef broth (or stock) and let it reduce until quite syrupy, then pour in an ample amount of cream (a good cupful, at least) and allow that to reduce as well, but only until it reaches a sauce-like consistency--and a fairly thin one, too, as the sauce will reduce a bit more in the oven. Taste and adjust for seasoning.

Assemble your dish by lay out the tongue slices in a greased gratin dish, overlapping them slightly like so many roof tiles. Spoon over the mushroom cream sauce, making sure that the mushrooms are well distributed, then top with lots of grated parmesan cheese and dot with butter. Bake in a hot oven (200C, 400F) for about 15 minutes, until the sauce is bubbling and a nice golden crust has formed on top. You can help the crust along by browning the dish under a broiler for a few minutes at the end. (Make sure you don't reduce the sauce too much--if you're like me, you'll want enough to sop up with bread later on...!)


Allow the gratin to 'settle down' for a few minutes (while you're enjoying your entrée) and serve in its gratin dish. And make sure you have plenty of crusty bread to sop up that exquisite sauce.

NOTE: I use the mushroom cream sauce described above for all sorts of things: as a topping for ham steaks (which can be made in exactly the same way as this tongue dish), to dress egg pasta or potato gnocchi--it's my favorite sauce for gnocchi ai funghi--or, in the Austrian manner, served with the wonderful bread dumplings called knoedel or, in Italian, canederli.

Pasta al tonno

Here's a quick note on another staple weeknight dinner: pasta al tonno. Very fast and almost as easy as opening a can.

Put your pasta on the boil. The sauce will take no more time than it takes for the water to come to the boil and the pasta to cook.

Begin making your sauce, as for many tomato and other sauces, by frying a clove or two of slightly crushed garlic (and a peperoncino, if you like a little 'heat') in some olive oil over gentle heat. As soon as the garlic begins to give off its aroma and very slightly brown, add some crushed canned tomatoes and simmer them until they are well reduced. Then add a few anchovy fillets, a handful of capers, a few pitted black olives, some chopped parsley and a can of tunafish packed in olive oil. (A small can will do for two people.) Simmer only for a minute or so and turn off the heat.

When the pasta is cooked very al dente, add it to the tomato and tuna sauce, along with a ladleful of the pasta water. Allow the pasta to simmer in the sauce for a minute or two until it is well coated with the sauce. Serve immediately. Do not serve with grated cheese.

NOTES: Like so many other Italian dishes, the success of this dish will depend largely on the quality of your ingredients. So find the best imported canned tomatoes you can find. (One day I'm going to do a post on choosing canned tomatoes--it's absolutely crucial and, in the US at least, tricky business.)

The tuna is, of course, key. At a minimum, use tunafish packed in olive oil. "Light" tuna packed in spring water and the like will result in a mundane, rather insipid dish. If you can find it (and afford it) there are some excellent premium brands of imported tuna from Sicily. The 'Ortiz' brand, from Spain, is also very good. The belly of the tuna, known as ventresca, is the tastiest part. If you can find imported anchovies and capers packed in salt, all to the good--otherwise, anchovy fillets in olive oil and capers in vinegar are acceptable substitutes. Anchovies packed in salt come whole and will need to be filleted and rinsed; the fillets in olive oil can be used as is. Capers. whether packed in salt or vinegar, should be rinsed and squeezed dry.

Finally, try to find small black olives, packed in brine or oil, preferably Gaeta or nicoise. Avoid canned olives--their taste is not characteristic of Italian cooking. If that's all you can find, feel free to simply omit them. In fact, many recipes, such as the one given by Ada Boni in Il Talismano della Felicita', calls only for tuna and anchovies. Boni tells you to add the anchovies to the oil with the garlic. She also calls for a pinch of oregano, not chopped parsley. Personally, I find that this version provides a more delicate taste--however paradoxical that may sound when talking about these assertive ingredients.

Pasta al tonno can also be made in bianco, or without tomatoes. Just add the tuna and other flavorings directly to the garlic and oil soffritto, and saute for a few minutes. You can also make an entirely raw tuna sauce, in which case you should either omit the garlic (which would be a bit too strong raw) or rub the inside of the bowl in which you are mixing the ingredients with a half clove, to give the dish just a hint of garlic flavor. A more elegant version of this dish can be made with fresh tuna and cherry tomatoes. Here's the recipe.

Perhaps the most common pasta to dress with this tuna sauce is spaghetti. But short pastas like penne, as well as concave ones like conchiglie, are also nice. Tonight I used--a bit unusually--some orecchiette that were lying around. This was the first time I had tried this combination and found it quite nice, actually.

Frittata ai peperoni

A frittata is a great solution to those nights when you want something savory but don't have much time (or desire) to make anything elaborate. The basic technique for making a frittata has appeared on this blog before, but a particularly tasty frittata is one made with peppers and onions--a classic combination of very assertively flavorful vegetables that, in another guise, goes into the summer side dish known as peperonata. Well, just add eggs and you have a great light dinner.

For 4 people, you gently stew two medium-sized red peppers (or green if you like) and an onion, each thinly sliced from top to bottom, in some olive oil until they are quite soft. This will take anywhere between 20 and 30 minutes (or even more, if you want them very soft). Regulate the heat so that the vegetables only slightly brown, if at all. Season with salt and pepper, and allow them to cool, covered, for a few minutes. (This rest under cover will further soften the vegetables and, for some mysterious reason, tends to enhance their flavor.) Then mix the vegetables with six eggs, some grated cheese and a pinch of salt, and proceed as for any frittata.

NOTES: As with peperonata, you can convert this into a more substantial dish by frying some sausage along with the peppers and onions, either sliced or crumbled. Some cubed pancetta might also be nice, though I haven't tried it. And if you want a really substantial dish, add some cubed potatoes to the mix.

You should slice both peppers and onions vertically, from top to bottom. The onions, in particular, need to be sliced in this way in order to retain their shape; sliced horizontally, onions will simply 'melt' away, something you don't necessarily want for this dish.