looking for some great pasta ideas using ground pork.
Hi wishfulthinking,
not an easy one. In Italy we generally use pork in pasta recipes, but we use diced pancetta or guanciale, for example for carbonara or amatriciana recipes, not ground pork, except in ragù recipes. But then we mix it with other ground meat, like beef. By the way,
ragù is an Italian sauce made cooking the main ingredients (meat, fish, vegetables) in tomato sauce, with various spices and herbs.
However, you can dress your pasta with a ragù made with ground pork. Your pork ragù will be a little savory, I think, but pork is pork...
I usually make my ragù with a beef/pork meat mix.
Now let’s take a look at this ragù.
Ingredients, serving 4 people:
300 g ground pork
1 big carrot
1/2 big onion
1 stick celery
3 tablespoons EVOO (or olive oil, but not butter)
300 g canned chopped tomatoes
grounded salt and black pepper as needed
1 cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese (or similar grated cheese)
450 g pasta, short-shaped (but you can also use spaghetti if you like)
about 2 tablespoons coarse salt
Finely dice carot, onion and celery.
Warm 3 tablespoons EVOO in a pot, medium heat. Add the vegs, cook about 8 minutes (do not burn them...).
Put the ground pork in the pan and cook it about 5 minutes, stirring.
Add tomatoes, stir well, cook about 5 minutes. Taste it and add salt and pepper, as needed; your sauce could be already quite savory, due to pork meat.
Cook on low heat about 30 minutes. Your ragù should not be too runny; you can add water during cooking, but do not overdo.
For pasta, bring a large pot of water (4 l water) to a rolling boil, then add about 2 tablespoons of coarse salt (1: don’t fill them to make sorts of little mountains... - 2: if your ragù is very salty, decrease the salt for pasta). Wait a minute, then add the pasta, stir it and cook it for the time printed on the label. Drain your pasta, put it in a large bowl, add the ragù, stir well, add grated cheese, stir again and serve at once.
This is not to be considered a side dish, for us Italians it is a primo piatto, which is the first course (or the only course) of our meals, followed by a secondo, usually meat, or fish or another similar course. If you want to use it as a side dish, maybe you want to decrease the quantities, and use short-shaped pasta to make it easier to eat.
Last note: stir well the pasta with the ragù in the bowl. Some of it will nonetheless remain on the bottom, then you can use a spoon after you put pasta in the dishes, to “rescue” what’s left in the bowl.
Buon appetito
