/ck/ - Food & Cooking

[Anonymous No.10936084]

My city is having a sugo/ragu making contest in a few days. I've entered already and the winner gets $1,500. As far as I'm aware, there's only 30 or so entrants, and it goes 2nd place for $750 and 3rd place for $250.

We're given four hours to prepare our sauces and whatever pasta we choose. I've never made a sauce that takes this long to make, so I think I'm out of my element. I entered because I'm confident but after hearing the time limit, I need help.

Here's my typical sugo recipe:

1. Six Italian sausages in a pot with olive oil, salt, pepper.
2. Rotate every couple minutes, ensuring they get nice and seared.
3. Grate 2 big onions, 1 or 2 carrots, 2 celery stalks very finely, in a ratio roughly 2:1:1.
4. Dice 2 or 3 sticks of soppressata sausage into 1cm cubes.
5. In another pot, 3 or 4 minced garlic cloves in oil. Cook until fragrant, then add the soffritto with olive oil and sweat until onion translucent.
6. Once sausages seared and a nice fond is made, remove sausages and deglaze pot with about 2 cups of red wine. Bring to a simmer, evaporate the alcohol. Add in maybe half a teaspoon of anchovy paste.
7. Move wine-fond liquid to soffritto pan. Stir to combine.
8. 48oz strained San Marzano tomatoes into the pan, stir well to combine. Bring back to boil then reduce to a simmer.
9. Add more salt to taste. Add 1tsp cumin, 3tbps parsley, 1/2tsp dried chili flakes, 1tsp oregano.
10. 2 tablespoon or so of worcestershire sauce to pan. Add the diced soppressata from earlier.
11. Maintain simmer for an hour, stirring every couple minutes. Don't reduce it too much.
12. Add about a teaspoon of unsalted butter, allow to melt. Stir very well.
13. Add sausages back to the sauce. Cook additional 10-20 minutes on low/maintaining simmer.

How can I improve this? I need to win.

[Anonymous No.10936087]

To clarify: my sauce only takes 2 hours at most. I can do it in one and a half. How the fuck do you extend this to four hours? Am I making sauce wrong?

[Anonymous No.10936141]

>>10936087
You can add stock or water to compensate for s longer cooking time and reduce the sauce down as well. Consider using meats with longer cooking time. More collagen to break down etc. You can always add the sausage later.

[Anonymous No.10936147]

>no basil
>no tomato paste
>no thyme
>no rosemary
>no bay leaf
>NO FUCKING BASIL

[Anonymous No.10936875]

Simmer the boy for four hours, just don't boil the fuck out of it. Also, you could braise some stuff in that time, so add some good tasty meat to it.

[Anonymous No.10938071]

>>10936084
3 tablespoons of parsley?

[Anonymous No.10938081]

>>10936084
get some good quality dried chillis too
serranos or poblanos fresh basil etc

[Anonymous No.10938116]

>what is simmering with a lid on

Chiles are one of my favorite ways to make a dish distinct. For bolognese I use gochugaru.

[Anonymous No.10938150]

>>10936084
Just use ragu

[Anonymous No.10938213]

Don't mind me just posting the best sauce you can buy

[Anonymous No.10938257]

>>10936084
My advice (just test it): Between 1 and 2, remove the sausage after you have browned it; then add a can of anchovies (why paste?) along with the garlic and fresh oregano. Before the garlic browns deglaze.

I'd avoid onion completely; tomato sauce should taste like tomatoes; don't over do it.

Adding carrots will sweeten the sauce; if you're using a red wine they're a good choice - grate some, but go slowly and taste.

Herbs and spices should be added early on before deglazing.

If you're adding sausage you prob don't need to add butter.

Consider other tomatoes; Marzano's have a good texture but the flavor is weak.

[Anonymous No.10938344]

>>10936147
This. Op add losts of fresh herbs and make sure to saute them all together before you add the tomatoes. Also it's summer time so you're going to want to add a couple of fresh diced tomatoes too, it'll make it a bit brighter. Personally I add a pinch of cinnamon and a pinch of cloves and a pinch of fresh ground black pepper. PINCH. Again all on the sautee. Cooking the spices and herbs into the veggies is the way to go it'll intensify the flavors.

[Anonymous No.10938487]

>>10938071
I've only used dried parsley flakes before, 3tsp is what I meant, but yeah. Quite a bit of it.

>>10936147
I've just never used these herbs and don't know how to use them still. Normally at home I'll put a tablespoon of store bought pesto in my sauce and it tastes amazing when combined. Rules for the competition is nothing prepared like that is allowed.

>>10938257
I adapted it from how my mother makes it. The foundation of the sauce is the soffritto; I can understand not wanting a lot of carrot but omitting onion is sacrilege in my opinion. It's grated so the texture is gone after cooking down, but that taste is important IMO.

Good tips though. I'm really just a routine guy and use the same things my mom and nonna did. Besides plum and heirloom, marzano tomatoes are the only things I've really used for sauce.

[Anonymous No.10938518]

>>10936084
What type of pasta are you going to use OP?

[Anonymous No.10938530]

>>10938518
My favorite is gnocchi but maybe it won't have as much broad appeal as fusili or farfalle. Trying to avoid penne and spaghetti as it's what most will be using I think. Tempted to do tagliatelle too.

I don't know, probably farfalle.

[Anonymous No.10938547]

>>10938213

[Anonymous No.10938901]

>>10938547
Sorry still not better than rao

[Anonymous No.10939183]

>>10936084
Sounds like it would turn out Marie level greasy

[Anonymous No.10939186]

>>10936084
Just dump a cup of sugar in your normal sauce.

[Anonymous No.10939205]

>>10938213
This shit is like $6 a jar. No thanks.

[Anonymous No.10941248]

>>10938213
does it have leaves in it? i dont like