KATKAT'S KITCHEN
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Ragù alla Napoletana
Ragù alla Napoletana, the Southern Italian Sunday lunch
Ragù alla Napoletana, is a slow cooked meat dish made from the cheapest cuts of meat, which are first sealed and brwonewd in Olive oil to trap the meat juices inside so that they are slowly released in flavour as the Ragù alla Napoletana cooks. It can be made with any of the cheaper cuts of meat, and again the cheaper cuts are marbled with fat and that fat slowly melts and enriches the Ragù alla Napoletana as it melts.
I have made this with Italian sausage, or chorizo the spicy sausage of Southern Spain, Shin of beef, Pork spare ribs, Skirt of beef, just choose whatever looks best, the perfect Ragù alla Napoletana is based on mixed meats slowly cooked.
Ragù alla Napoletana
Approach this legendary long and slow simmered Ragù alla Napoletana (Pasta Meat Sauce) with reverence. Although much of the Amalfi coast has been very poor until about forty years ago this dish has always been associated with the rich and not the poor. The reason for this it has at least two kinds of meat and in the sixties most Neapolitans ate meat only on high days and holidays. Then Ragù alla Napoletana, is a dish truly elevated for feast days and holidays.
Interestingly many Southern housewives made the curved pasta from flour and water, by rolling it around the spoke of an umbrella, they then sold the fresh pasta to merchants and they used the money for staples to feed their fmaily.The making of the pasta was a social thing four or five housewives would get together and share the job.
Ragù alla Napoletana
It maybe further enriched with the addition of beef and pork skin rolls bound up with string after being filled with chopped parsley, garlic, pine nuts, raisins and cheese shavings: a truly magnificent feast! I also add roughly chopped onions and red peppers both of which melt during the cooking process but they leave a wonderful flavour.
Ragù alla Napoletana
As you can imagine there are as many recipes for Ragù alla Napoletana as there are Italians, but use this as a building block to make your family favourite Ragù alla Napoletana. Read more about Neapolitan Food .
Ingredients for Ragù alla Napoletana
5 tablespoons virgin olive oil
1 large Spanish onion, roughly chopped
2 large red peppers roughy chopped
500g/1lb 2oz topside of beef, chopped into medium-sized pieces
500g/1lb 2oz pork ribs
200g/7oz meaty Italian pork sausages
3 tablespoons tomato purée, diluted in 100ml/3½fl oz red wine
3 x 400g/14oz tins chopped tomatoes
large handful fresh basil leaves
4 fresh bay leaves
salt and freshly ground black pepper
pasta or bread, to serve
Method
1.Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan, add the onion and cook for three minutes, or until softened. Fry the meat in bratches until it is completely sealed.
Increase the heat, stir in the diluted tomato concentrate and continue to cook until the volume of the liquid is reduced by about a third. Add the tomatoes and bay leaf, season with salt and freshly ground black pepper and stir well. Cover and cook very gently for about two hours, when the the sauce will be thick and silky, and the meat will have fallen off the bone. Stir from time to time, checking that there is enough moisture; if necessary add a little more wine or water. Add several large handfuls of basil in the last half an hour.
Serve with bread or pasta to mop up the sauce and then serve the meat as a second course with a salad.
My Italian page can be found here, when you have eaten your Ragù alla Napoletana
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