Spinasse Ragu Recipes

SPINASSE RAGU

Steps:

• In 4-quart Dutch oven, cook beef and pork with salt and pepper over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until no longer pink. Drain fat using colander over large bowl. Discard fat, and transfer meat to large bowl; set aside.
• In large food processor, place onions, carrots, celery and garlic. Cover; process until finely chopped. In same Dutch oven, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add chopped vegetables and rosemary; cook about 15 minutes or until vegetables begin to brown.
• Add tomatoes and reserved meat to vegetables; cook about 15 minutes longer or until tomatoes darken in color. Add red wine. Increase heat to medium-high. Cook about 15 minutes longer or until liquid is reduced by half. Add chicken broth; reduce heat to low. Slowly simmer 3 to 4 hours or until meat is tender. Stir in nutmeg during last few minutes of cook time.

ALL DAY RAGU (BOLOGNESE)

Steps:

• Ensure the minced meats are at room temperature, leave defrost overnight if necessary its best to do this after you have done the tomatoes.
• Tomato Preparation (the night before):.
• Cut a light cross in the smooth end of the tomatoes. In a large pot of rapidly boiling water, quickly place a tomato in and let sit for no longer than 30 seconds to blanche the skin. Remove and rinse under cool water to stop the cooking process. You should now be able to gently peel the skins off the tomato.
• Next, quarter the tomato and spoon the pulp into a sieve over a bowl. For each tomato that is pulped add a couple of light pinches of salt over the pulp in the sieve. Let the pulp drain overnight in the fridge to remove all the juice in the bowl.
• On the day of cooking dice the tomato flesh and set aside for during the cooking process.
• The day of the Ragu.
• Pre heat an oven to 150°C.
• Dice the onions.
• Heat a good cast iron caserole dish on the stove and add the olive
• Fry off the onion in the caserole dish until they are well caramelized.
• Add the pork mince first and cook off until brown.
• Once the pork is browned add the veal and cook altogether well.
• Add the tomato paste to the meat/onion mix and cook off briefly for a minute or two.
• Add the diced tomato flesh and stir in well, at the same time add the juice collected overnight.
• Stir well and cover the caserole dish then place in the pre heated oven.
• Wait at least 4 hours before removing and giving gentle stir. Test for liquid consistency and add water as necessary to reach your preferred level. This is entirely subjective and it depends how "soupy" you prefer your ragu. Now is the perfect time to test your seasoning levels, add salt as necessary however most of the salt needed is added during the tomato preparation.
• 2 hours before dishing time add the fresh herbs and stir in well and taste test.
• 1/2 hour before dishing remove and do a final liquid check and taste test.
• Dish up and enjoy. This is ideally served on fresh home made pasta (1 large egg per 125g fine plain flour) you should have ample time to make this while the ragu is cooking.