/ck/ - Food & Cooking

>>19850131
I simmer for ~2h usually. 1 isn't enough.

>>19850131
I pop open a jar of it and dump it right in with the noods

>>19850131
I've tried it with and without tomatoes (just paste) several times and it always comes out better without tomatoes. I used mutti polpa crushed tomatoes and let it simmer for at least 3 hours. not sure if san marzanos would be such a massive upgrade, I kinda doubt it

>>19850131
This is my go-to meat based sauce:

Cook soffrito in olive oil until onion sweated.
De-glaze with wine.
Add 2/3 beef, 1/3 pork mix, a couple of minced chicken livers and brown.
Add about 1 tbs of tomato paste, mix and cook out.
De-glaze with wine.
Add beef stock and bring to boil.
Turn down to simmer for 2 hours
Add about a cup of milk.
Simmer about an hour.
Season as needed.

I'll add garlic, basil, and tomato passata depending on what I'm using it for, but I really enjoy the way this focuses on the taste of the meat.

>>19850147
Another quality post from the cooking board

doesn't ground meat get overcooked if you simmer for hours

>>19850919
not unless you go beyond 6 hours

>>19850919
>overcooked
It MELTS into the other ingredients, which is the goal of stewing something

>>19850333
>Add about a cup of milk.
>Simmer about an hour.
Why doesn't that curdle?

>>19850919
Yeah it does this 4 hour 6 hour 80 hour cooking or whatever someones italian grandma does is bullshit the meat turns really gritty and dry.

>>19850131
Pretty much this one but with some oregano and basil

https://youtu.be/d8Gq5SyZI34?si=lNphG0ZMB1bgHI7Q

Ultimate Ragu Recipe:

>Use dutch oven
>Cube up chuck roast (about an inch to an inch and a half)
>Brown meat and some hot Italian sausages
>Deglaze with mirepoix, some garlic, red pepper flakes, and secret ingredients: anchovie filets and a little tomato paste.
>As veggies sweat out, add red wine and cook au sec
>Add tomato puree (I get a can or two of peeled san marzanos and run them through my food mill)
>Add bay leaves, dried oregano, and fresh basil
>Stir to combine and add meat back and parmesan cheese rinds
>Bring to simmer, cover, and put in the oven for a few hours
>Skim off fat, season throughout the process and adjust at the end

I guarantee this is the best Ragu you will ever have. Goes great with gnocchi and fresh pastas. One word of advice, be careful with the tomato paste, it can burn quickly.

>>19852219
it annoys me how he started browning the meat in the oven every time so you can't really follow his recipes anymore unless you want to do that stupid shit and all the extra clean up and breaking the hot meat apart with your hands.
better than bouillon is only available in america too which means you'll never get the same flavor unless you live in a brown country

>>19850131
>2.5 pounds 85/15 ground beef
>1 pound salt pork, cubed
>4 pounds onions
>However much celery/carrot needed to complete the 2:1:1 soffrito with the onions
>An entire head of garlic
>Salt, pepper, red pepper flakes (or Cayenne powder) to taste
>Dry red wine
>2 24oz cans tomatoes (puree or blended whole tomatoes)
>Fresh basil and parsley
>1/2 pound of parm

>Heat pork cubes in pan, starting from cold, until crispy and the fat's rendered out
>Take out pork, add ground beef, simmer until VERY browned.
>Take meat out, add in veggies and cook until soft. You may need some extra olive oil
>Add in the garlic and pepper, cook until fragrant
>Add in wine to taste, cook off alcohol
>add meat back in
>Add in tomatoes, rinse cans out with wine
>Salt, let simmer for like 2 hours
>Kill heat, stir in parsley and basil to taste
>Portion out

This should make 12 servings. Each serving is for a 1/4 pound of pasta, and the 1/2 pound of parm is distributed evenly along all 12 servings. That's WAY more pain than you think, and it's why there was no milk in this recipe. The cheese adds the creaminess.

You will notice that there are a shitload of veggies. This is by design. You already know what beef and tomatoes taste like together. That's nothing special. What makes a ragu special is, ironically, what's in it besides the meat.

>>19852183
>Why doesn't that curdle?
Dunno. It blends in with the meet sauce very well.

I'm Italian and you are all wrong. Trying to sound fancy with your clickbait overdone wanna be chef recipes is all just wrong.

>>19850131
- add not-too-lean ground meat (ideally a mix of beef and pork, but beef only is ok) and diced pancetta in a pot with a light drizzle of olive oil.
- cook on pretty high heat until golden brown.
- prepare soffritto/mirepoix (about 60% onion, 20% carrot, 20% celery).
- remove the cooked minced meat from the pot and set apart.
- add butter and the vegetables in the same pot.
- cook on medium low heat until the onion is translucent and the rest become soft, scraping the meat fond with a spatula.
- re-add the ground meat and stir.
- pour a glass of wine and let it evaporate.
- add a few tablespoons of tomato paste (doppio concentrato) and keep cooking for 1 or 2 minutes while stirring.
- add the crushed tomatos (not too many, Bolognese is first and foremost a meat sauce, not a tomato sauce).
-add more liquid in form of milk or stock.
-cook for at least 2-3 hours, stirring occasionally

>>19853038
I forgot to mention that you have to add salt and pepper at some point. Bay leaves too, if you like the taste.
>pour a glass of wine and let it evaporate.
white or red, your choice. They're both acceptable, as long as the flavor profile is not too far out.

italian here.
here's a non amerimutt recipe for Ragù

>take pot and put olive oil
>wait for the olive oil to warm up a bit (it has a low smoke point so be carefull)
>put soffritto in (or mirepoix if you are a faggot and wanna call him that)
>wait for it to start change color
>put the meat in 80/20 beef and pork (use the inside of sausages if you can it taste better)
>cook for 2/3 min max (always be carefull of the soffritto it burn easily)
>add red wine and deglaze it (can also use white wine but only if you don't have any red wine otherwise you are a nigger faggot)
>wait for some of the wine to evaporate
>add tomato sauce (I use mutti because it taste really niece Cirio is also okay)
>let it simmer over a small flame for a couple of hours
>before turning it off check how dense it is if it's to watery turn the flame up and let some of the water evaporate

and this is it, also people in italy prefer ceramic pots especially old people, homemade tomato sauce is mostly a scam 99% of people don't know what they are doing, also people put salt and some people also put sugar

>>19853038
add butter to a fucking italian dish what type of fucking braindead nigger do you have to be to think shit like that.
also mixing oil and butter is some dumb shit

>>19853085
Are you dumb, bro? People have been making buttered parm noodles in Italy for hundreds of years.

>>19853085
you don't know shit.
Bolognese sauce is from the Emilia Romagna region of Italy, which is pretty much up north.
Northern Italy is traditionally a butter area.
Even the Bolognese recipes featured on two of the most prestigious Italian cooking publications list butter among the ingredients:
https://www.lacucinaitaliana.it/ricetta/salse-e-sughi/ragu-alla-bolognese/
https://www.cucchiaio.it/ricetta/ricetta-ragu-bolognese/
mixing extra virgin olive oil and butter adds more complexity.

>>19850131
I've been farting around with this.

I found that it doesn't really matter what meat blend you use, it all sort of ends up the same. Did the traditional beef:lamb:pork, tasted very similar to just beef or just pork. So pork is usually the best thing to use because it is the cheapest with the most flavorful flat.

I like the stock version just a little more due to the fact I don't get the acid reflux I do with tomato. But I still do the tomato version from time to time, it feels more like a pasta sauce. If I have open wine available, I definitely use it up. Otherwise I pull from my sherry bottle for the deglaze. Mirepoix, garlic, thyme, parsley, oregano, and S&P. Usually 2-3 bay leaves for the big stock pot. Stock for the stock version, and tomato can + possata + paste for the tomato sauce version. I generally simmer once I am up to temp for several hours till I reach the right thickness. Maybe add a splash of cream when its about done if I feel like it.

I also found that blending it is a bad idea. Completely changes the texture and flavor in a bad way. It needs to be that lumpy sauce, it's just a much better eating experience.

>>19852183
So it won't if you have a higher fat content cream, but essentially the main reason why is that there isn't the right chemical conditions for curdling to occur. You need a high acidity, and typically that is brought down in ragu by the presence of sugar from the onion and carrot, counteracting any wine/tomato acidity. The other thing is you are blending it with other substances in a thick sauce, not water, so you are physically blocking the proteins from combining. Instead they distribute and attach to other stuff. Just as with creame where the fat blocks the proteins from combining to form curds.

>>19853079
>browning meat in the same pot where the soffritto already is.
why do so many people in Italy do this?
sure, you have the very small convenience of not having to wash an additional container, but the result is pretty bad. grey boiled meat instead of a nice tasty brown color.

>>19853501
>having to wash an additional container
you don't even have to. the ideal order would be:

>release fat from pancetta (or bacon) on lower heat
>brown ground meat on high heat
>add soffritto > deglace

that way you have more layers. even neutral oils that will carry the pancetta flavor are a great option. olive oil shouldn't be set in stone

>>19853501
You can turn it up to high heat without burning anything.
>>19853362
Veneto here. We rarely use butter. We use olive oil from lake Garda. The only ones who use butter are high up in the mountains, near France or in Bologna (nicknamed "The Fat One" because of that).

>>19853079
>somebody claiming to be "Italian" calling somebody else a "mutt"

Dio cane. Your people have been mixed with blacks, Greeks, Arabs, Germanics, French, and Slavs, among others, especially in the south and Sicilia, which is why so many of you have brown eyes and dark hair, like the negro and the Arab. Your nation is among the most "mutt" on the planet, mutt.

genovese sauce is objectively better than ragu bolognese and I'm sick of pretending it's not.

>>19850131
I use this recipe. Simmer for 2-3 hours if possible. I do not add the optional milk and I use a Dutch oven.
https://www.accademiaitalianadellacucina.it/sites/default/files/Rag%C3%B9%20alla%20bolognese%20-%20updated%20recipe_20%20April%202023.pdf

>>19854023
Why

>>19853362
This is false. The official recipe from the Italian academy has olive oil. >>19854027

>>19854035
the onion / meat ratio simply makes for a more delicious sauce.
based onions, we don't deserve them

>>19854040
A few weeks back I read Africans eat a lot of onions. And actually in the Western parts of the world we eat the least amount of onions for some reason.

>>19854038
any reason to use olive oil instead of sunflower or canola after you extract fat from the pancetta?
the pancetta fat combined with neutral oil that you can also use to brown the meat properly should always be more delicious than just olive oil with soffritto, no?

kinda like with mayo where olive oil is a bad idea

>>19852323
You can just do it in the pot if you want

>>19853688
>You can turn it up to high heat without burning anything.
as long as there are wet vegetables in your pot, you can't reach a temperature high enough to really trigger the maillard reaction.

>>19854038
>official recipe
lmao, according to who?
it's a really old dish, there's no such thing as a single, official ragù recipe.
in Bologna butter is more traditional than olive oil, so a Bolognese recipe featuring butter is totally "authentic"

>>19854093
>according to who?
The Accademia Italiana Della Cucina, that's who.

https://www.accademiaitalianadellacucina.it/it/node/62013

The Italians got together and voted on an "official" Bolognese recipe back in the day, since there was so much bitching about what a "true" Bolognese was, hence the "official" recipe.

They just recently updated the recipe that hasn't been fucked with since 1982.
>The Italian Academy of Cuisine has updated the recipe for true ragù alla Bolognese : from 20 April 2023 the reference text will differ from that deposited in the Bologna Chamber of Commerce on 17 October 1982. The new recipe, resulting from lengthy and extensive research by a specially constituted Italian Academy of Cuisine Study Committee , has been deposited in the Bologna Chamber of Commerce.

>>19854027
Nice.

>pic related
I was using the old one from 82'.

>>19850333
saved, sounds very tasty

>>19854093
The Chamber of Commerce of Bologna. And they specifically removed butter in the 2023 revision (last one was from 1982).

>>19854192
Real recognize real

>>19853802
bro shut the hell up i'm not form the nigger sud or the faggotry nord the center of italy it's literally been the capital of cristianity for hundred of years, go back to the fucking shithole that is america nigger-cuck

>>19853362
bro you are fucking retarded italy uses olive oil not butter you dumb fuck i'm from italy i know what the fuck we use

>>19850333
Top tier recipe, I do almost exactly the same. I prefer using whole chunks of stewing beef cuts till they fall off the bone, and optionally fry some pancetta in if I want that pork fat.

Italians arguing about olive oil and butter reminds me of Mexicans arguing over whether corn or flour tortillas are "authentic" Mexican, not knowing that the answer is "yes, you're just a poorfag who's never been more than an hour from home."

>>19854350
>No vegetables
Let me guess, you're American and retarded. Use the official recipe. There is no reason to do anything else.

>>19854356
>What the fuck is a soffritto
Kek you pedantic pseud. Also who the fuck is saying that I'm making a Bolognese? Ragu has many variants. I'm euro but unlike you, americans don't live rent free in my mind.

>>19854340
>the center of italy it's literally been...
...a product of miscegenation, just like the rest of the peninsula. I bet you have brown eyes and dark hair, don't you mutt?

Stay mad ragazzo.

>>19854356
>doesn't know what soffritto is
>calls somebody else retarded

>>19854344
You're from nu-Italy, you don't know shit. Traditionally it's all butter.

>>19852216
that's not true, my bolognese that's on for 6 hours is almost smearable like a paste, it's that soft.

>>19854504
not him but 6 hours is exactly the maximum amount of time before the meat slowly starts to get worse and not better

>>19854370
bro the fuck are you talking about being pure race fucking amerimutt got mixed with the shit europe didn't want qnd still act like pure cristians at least italy has a culture and recipes, America literally has nothing lmao the fuck you gonna cook? peanut butter and plastic cheese? if you want to talk about traditional recipe at least have some tradition to begin with

>>19854392
no? the fuck you getting this fake shit info from.
italy uses olive oil and in the rare exception where it's not used thay use "strutto" which is animal fat

>>19854573
>seething mutt seethes

>>19854504
If you braise bitesize beef chunks you only need about 3 hours to make it tender. Bigger chunks need to go for like 6 hours and whole roasts like they do in bbq go for 10+ hours. Mince is like 100 times smaller.

>>19850131
I brown my meat first, so I can sear it over a high heat and get it properly browned and caramelised, then I remove it, add onions with a splash of oil, butter and salt/pepper, cook them for 15 minutes, then I add my diced celery/carrots, cook another 15 minutes, then tomato purée, cook for a few minutes, then garlic, cook another minute, add my beef back in, then red wine, reduce that, then I add my chopped tomatoes, a pinch of sugar, thyme, red pepper flakes, salt, pepper, a couple bay leaves, worcestershire sauce, beef stock and a little whole milk, then I place it in the oven and let it simmer for a couple hours, stirring it every so often, once it’s done I remove it, put it back on the stove, remove the bay leaves and thyme sprigs, then stir through a knob of butter and then season to taste, before letting it rest at room temperature with the lid on for like 30-60 minutes, before cooking some pasta, reheating my sauce, then mixing the cooked pasta through it, serve and then top with grated parmesan.

>>19854344
only recently people from the north switched to oil, mostly for health reasons.
but until 50 or so years ago, butter was the more easily available cooking fat north of Florence. Nobody in the area had olive trees, but cattle farmers were ubiquitous. There were no supermarkets and people used to buy local products only.
using olive oil in ragù is perfectly fine, but butter would be more traditional.

>>19854184
>>19854329
it's just a bunch of people from Bologna who came up with an "official" recipe 40 years ago, but it's not more authentic than others.
Reminder that before the discovery of America, ragù was already a thing but didn't have tomato sauce in it. Wouldn't that be a even more "traditional" version?
So arguing about the one true original recipe is completely pointless.

>>19854943
yea, people should focus on how to improve every step in the process of making ragu. things like adding tomato or not are personal preference but many other things could be perfected in an objective manner

>>19854889
exactly that's why people used strutto wich is animal fat.
back in the day milk was used for cheese not butter people used strutto because it was cheap and could be found anywhere italy is for the most part a pork country and pork has a lot of fat to use

>>19854960
still is part of a culture and a tradition for a lot of people a simple recipe like this can bring back memories, in italy dinner is a big part of the culture i've been to dinners that lasted for more than 5 hours, it's okay to put a twist or modify a recipe but don't expect people to call that the traditional way.
that's a big fucking problem for american they can't appreciate something without being part of it, I hate american of italian descent they are not italian and are not part of our culture and pretending to be one it's just retarded create your own culture

I'm retarded so this is what I do

>sautay mirepoix
>add garlic 1-2 minutes before you add the chopped tomatoes
>add 1-2 chicken legs
>poach chicken legs for 40 minutes
>take out chicken
>blitz that shit with a hand blender

wa la

ragu, italian-style

>>19854344
Who gives a shit what’s traditional and what isn’t? Food evolves over time, and what was traditional 100 years ago, wasn’t traditional 100 years before that, because food evolves, and people tweak and change things over time as tastes, society and peoples knowledge on food adapts. Butter just makes things taste better, and it definitely works in ragu. It doesn’t matter if it’s traditional or not, what matters is how good the food is.

>>19854943
>just a bunch of people from Bologna who came up with an "official" recipe 40 years ago,

Correct. That refers to the official "Bolognese" sauce, but a "ragu" is just a meat sauce. Most people won't know the difference and think they're both the same.

>>19855799
>steals French culture
>claims it's there own
>tells somebody else to create their own culture

Ragu isn't "Italian", it's French. Morons.

>History of ragu
>Etymologically speaking, the term comes from the French ragoût and reached the region of Emilia-Romagna in the late 18th century, perhaps following Napoleon's 1796 invasion and occupation of those northern regions.[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rag%C3%B9

I hate Italians. They steal culture from Greeks, French, Germans, North Africans, claim it as their own, then tell others to create their own culture. Ignorant, rude cunts, they are.

>>19855799
You don’t know what you’re talking about though, you’re just being ignorant, because cultures and traditions adapt over time. Your memories of certain dishes and what you claim they should taste like, would be different to your grandparents, and their tastes would be different to their grandparents before that. And you talk about Americans, yet tomatoes, which are seen as a staple in Italy and Italian cuisine, come from America and we’re only introduced to Italy in the mid 15th century, and most of the dishes involving them didn’t even appear until the 19th century. So you’re talking a load of shit, even carbonara, another highly popular Italian dish, was introduced by American soldiers during WW2, using their rations of bacon and powdered eggs, which then over the decades has been adapted and changed up until what you have today. Does that mean Italians shouldn’t be using guanciale or pecorino cheese, because it’s not traditional? Of course not, you muppet, because they’ve adapted and changed it to make it taste better, and continue to do so.

>>19850131
Onion, carrots, garlic, ground meet, tomato, MILK
Simmer for 25-30 minutes because I'm hungry and not in the mood for a 5 star meal.

>>19850131
>mirepoix
it's called soffritto in Italian cooking.
>soffritto
>ground beef & pork
>tomato paste
>wine deglaze
>beef stock and bay leaf
>finish with whole milk
>salt and pepper to taste

>>19856050
>it's called soffritto in Italian cooking.
But we’re speaking English and in England we call it a Mirepoix as well.

>>19856059
>in England
my condolences but you guys also do stupid shit like calling filets 'fillets'

>>19854684
Good post