What does a good pasta and ragù do for you?

[di reston]

Hi everyone - I'm doing a bit of research on Pasta and Ragù. What does it do for you? I think it's one of those food combinations that, when it's really good, can make you feel really good, especially when all your family or friends are there with you to enjoy the experience. Do you think it has that special ingredient that makes it memorable? Do you like crunchy bits from round the edge of the dish (that you sometimes get with dishes like lasagne), What is your favourite ragù,and what makes pasta and ragù dishes popular in so many parts of the world?

I would be so interested to know what you think that magic ingredient is!

Tante grazie

di reston

 

[puffin3]

For me it's the flavor of the pasta perfectly made and cooked.
That's a whole subject in itself.
There are thousands of ragu dishes. Anytime you put something in a pot and cook it with a liquid you have made a ragu. Anyway.
A favorite is making a roux from dextrinized flour/unsalted butter then making a sauce veloute with a splash of Pernod then adding thin sliced large raw peeled prawns literally just before serving. Garnished with fine chopped fresh fennel frond. Good grind of pepper and a sprinkle of chili flakes.
Assuming the plate/pasta/sauce are hot as they should be the prawn slices are cooked perfectly in 30 seconds. The prawns are sliced paper thin lengthwise.

 

[Andy M.]

For me it's the flavor of the pasta perfectly made and cooked.
That's a whole subject in itself.
There are thousands of ragu dishes. Anytime you put something in a pot and cook it with a liquid you have made a ragu...

I'm familiar with a more specific and limited definition. Ragu as a meat sauce for pasta.

Isn't there some Italian commission or other that controls such culinary matters. They define the rules for what Parmigiano Reggiano, Prosciutto de Parma, etc. are. Ragu alla Bolognese is the most well known but there are others. I believe there is even one that's made with horse meat.

 

[creative]

I wonder if this is a good place to ask about methods of making a ragu sauce. Whilst traditionally it is simmered for about an hour, Adelle Davis says that nothing is accomplished by doing this except evaporation (wouldn't the mince break down though, i.e. become more succulent?) She suggests just placing the mince in the reduced sauce in the fridge for the same length of time.

Thoughts? I haven't tried this out.

 

[CWS4322]

I'm making a mushroom-lamb version with fresh gnocchi for the photo shoot on Wednesday. Not to be confused with the French Ragout, even though the two words come from the same root word.

 

[Addie]

What does it do for me? Gives me a mad case of heartburn. That's what it does for me.

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

It makes me too satisfied. I love a great pasta, with boldly spiced ragu, or marinara, or bolognaise. What does it do to me, it makes me eat too much.

Seeeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North

 

[Addie]

Hi everyone - I'm doing a bit of research on Pasta and Ragù. What does it do for you? I think it's one of those food combinations that, when it's really good, can make you feel really good, especially when all our family or friends are there with you to enjoy the experience. Do you think it has that special ingredient that makes it memorable? Do you like crunchy bits from round the edge of the dish (that you sometimes get with dishes like lasagne), What is your favourite ragù,and what makes pasta and ragù dishes popular in so many parts of the world?
I would be so interested to know what you think that magic ingredient is!
Tante grazie
di reston

The answer is simple. Family and friends. Pasta is a dish that requires a family or group of friends to be present and join in the feast. As long as those who are sitting down to enjoy the feast together, their palates all agree on the same seasonings. NO, no hot pepper flakes. Yes, make it hotter please. More onion, more garlic, sweet peppers please, more oregano. No thank you, no cheese for me. Yes, please pass the cheese. I can never have enough cheese.

But when all the family sits down along with friends together, they have become accustomed to the same flavors over the years. They all like garlic or they hate it. The same with onion, red pepper flakes, etc. They all grew up in the same village learning to like the same food. But let a distant relative from another village come for a visit, she grew up with different seasonings in the family sauce. She may eat just enough to be polite and say nothing. Or she may comment. She may tell them how her family makes it. The host village is not willing to learn a new way of cooking their pasta. So they continue to cook their pasta dishes the way they always have and pass down the recipe to the next generation.

When a member of the family leaves for another foreign land, she brings that recipe with her and will teach it to her new neighbors.

During WWII we had a POW camp in our town that held Italian soldiers. After the war a lot of the soldiers didn't want to go back home. They had distant relatives here and were qualified to stay. We had Italian women who had been sent here prior to the war. They would cook and bring out the food to the POW camp. If there were some soldiers who came from Milan, she would feed them. The other women did the same for the soldiers of their town or village.

Face it. There is something very basic in Italian food. Maybe it is the seasonings. Or maybe it is simply family and friends sharing good food.

 

[creative]

Re: "that magic ingredient" - may sound mundane (and I don't always use it) but CELERY in the sauce definitely gives it a piquancy. (Since only a stalk is used I feel reluctant to buy a head of celery). Also, fennel makes a good substitute for celery.

Goes without saying I guess but a good quality meat - I like to use chorizo simmered on a very low heat for a while until it is rendered soft/yielding and succulent.

I tend to prefer fresh egg pasta (can be spaghetti, tagliatelle or conchiglie - the shells).

I also find serving it in large bowls adds to its appeal.

 

[di reston]

There is indeed a ragù made with horse meat, in central Italy and southward. There is even a ragù of thrushes and guinea pig!

What I love about pasta and ragù is the making of it - it's definitely more a Sunday dish than a week day dish here in Italy. Usually the Ragù is made on Saturday afternoons, and undergoes very long cooking, even as much as six hours. The pasta is made fresh on the Sunday morning. It could be tagliatelle, maltagliati, malloreddus (Sardinia) ot other short pasta (but not too short). But what it really is is the practice of a very long tradition, with all the family helping, and after the long Sunday lunch. It is a dish that gives a wonderful feeling of wellbeing, such as few other dishes do.

Di Reston

Enough is never as good as a feast (Oscar Wilde)

 

[puffin3]

My mother used to use horse meat whenever she would otherwise have used beef when we lived in France.
Whole hid-on quarters were hung in the butcher shop. You pointed to what part of the quarter you wanted and the butcher would sell you that cut that he had already butchered from another quarter......if that makes sense.
It's delicious cooked properly.

 

[Cooking Goddess]

I'll simmer a pot of sauce/ragu using my MIL's recipe that Himself taught to me when we were first married. It's a basic beef/onion/tomato/spices version. I've tweaked it over the years, but it's still very close to Mom's original. It makes me happy just to eat it because we've had it so many times together as a family. One time when we went back to OH to visit our kids we got a small hotel suite to stay in. It came complete with a tiny kitchen, so I took a 2-quart container of sauce from home in the cooler. The kids showed up at the motel, helped make salad, finish the supper and pour wine. We had a nice family dinner. Just the four of us, but it was as wonderful as when we would gather around our big table in our old home's kitchen. Food sometimes IS family.

 

[Addie]

I'll simmer a pot of sauce/ragu using my MIL's recipe that Himself taught to me when we were first married. It's a basic beef/onion/tomato/spices version. I've tweaked it over the years, but it's still very close to Mom's original. It makes me happy just to eat it because we've had it so many times together as a family. One time when we went back to OH to visit our kids we got a small hotel suite to stay in. It came complete with a tiny kitchen, so I took a 2-quart container of sauce from home in the cooler. The kids showed up at the motel, helped make salad, finish the supper and pour wine. We had a nice family dinner. Just the four of us, but it was as wonderful as when we would gather around our big table in our old home's kitchen. Food sometimes IS family.

A pot of gravy (sauce) and a pan of pasta with a couple of crusty loaves sitting on the table where you rip off a piece to sop up the leftover gravy on your plate, family surrounding you with love, and you have the world.

I always insisted that we sit down every night to a family meal. No TV, telephone or other distractions. The only distraction was family and

 

[di reston]

An answer to Andy M. There is indeed an 'official' recipe for ragù alla Bolognese, because so many people were making ragù's that were perfectly ok but not the classic one from Bologna, but calling it 'Bolognese'.

The approved recipe was published by the Bologna arm of the Italian Academy of Food in 1982. There are hundreds of ragùs that are local and typical of the cuisine of the various regions of Italy, all of them totally different from the classic Bolognese one. Hope this helps

Enough is never as good as a feast (oscar Wilde)

di reston

 

[Andy M.]

If you make a tomato sauce and add some ground beef, that doesn't automatically make it a Bolognese.

 

[di reston]

It automatically makes it not a Bolognese!

di reston

Enough is never as good as a feast (Oscar Wilde)