You can’t do without a good meat ragù to dress homemade egg tagliatelle or to fill a creamy baked lasagna, to liven up potato gnocchi, right? It’s essential to use good cuts of meat that aren’t too lean and a great brand of tomato passata, but you don’t need me to tell you that.
Have you put on your apron yet? Let’s start preparing the meat ragù because the cooking will be slow and we need to get to work.
- Difficulty: Medium
- Cost: Medium
- Preparation time: 10 Minutes
- Portions: 8
- Cooking methods: Low heat / slow simmer
- Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients
- 1.1 lb ground meat (beef or mixed: beef/pork)
- 3 cups tomato passata (1 bottle)
- to taste onion/celery/carrot (or ready-made soffritto in a jar, see recipe)
- 1 glass wine (white or red)
- 1 pinch nutmeg
- to taste olive oil
- 1 leaf bay leaf
- to taste salt
Preparation
Chop the onion, celery and carrot for the soffritto and put the vegetables in a high-sided pot together with a few tablespoons of olive oil. Let them brown for 3 minutes.
You can use the ready-made soffritto in a jar, see here how it’s done.
A little trick: rinse the ground meat under running water. After draining and patting it dry with a sheet of paper towel, add it to the soffritto, then crumble it in the pot with a wooden spoon while it browns in the oil for at least 10 minutes.
When the meat has absorbed its juices, turn up the heat and pour the wine over it. Let it evaporate until all the alcohol is gone.
Turn down the heat, add a pinch of cinnamon, the bay leaf, a sprinkle of freshly ground pepper and a few pinches of salt. Let the meat take on flavor for 2 minutes before adding the tomato.
At this point add the tomato, a little at a time and not all at once. Put two ladles of tomato in, stir the ragù and let it cook until it reduces. Add two more ladles of tomato and continue like this until you have used all the passata.
Finally add one glass of water, stir the ragù, add salt and lower the heat. Let it cook for about an hour and a half with a lid on. Stir from time to time and if you see it’s too thick before an hour is up, add another glass of water (or milk) and finish cooking the meat ragù.
