Sugo Al Ragu - Slow Cooked Oxtail Ragu Pasta Sauce

Ragu seems to be the 'flavour of the month' so to speak. It's all over Masterchef, My Kitchen Rules and what all the celebrity chefs are talking about. As an Italian (Sicilian) we never actually called this simple pasta sauce a ragu, to us as the children, the Aussiefied version was just chunky meat sauce. We had this discussion around the dinner table not too long ago about all the trendy terminology that has been picked up and is now in everyday vernacular. If I had a dollar for everytime my Nonna said that a 'latte' literally translates into milk and how absurd it would be to order a large milk from Gloria Jeans, I'd be a rich lady! So is similar with ragu... "what's this ragu?" she says, you would have never seen that on a menu 30 years ago. Well I'm certainly glad things have changed and we are seeing this delightful dish more and more.

This particular dish brings me back to some of my earliest memories. My Dad has always taken great pleasure in watching the infants in our family suck on a big juicy bone (like a puppy) and get a lovely big sauce moustache after having pasta with sugo al ragu.

Like a lot of Italian cooking, it's very hard to place quantities on ingredients and such, since Italians are BAD with recipes, everything is by look and feel, which is kind of beautiful too. Although this forever means that nothing is ever as good as Nonna's!

With this recipe anything goes really, so if you have pork use that, if you have lamb use that, spice it up and use a combo if that's what takes your fancy, whatever your taste buds desire will be perfect!

Watch the tutorial...

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Sugo Al Ragu - Slow Cooked Oxtail Ragu Pasta Sauce

by Dee @ Master Chefette April-29-2015

A delcious, full-bodied, melt in the mouth pasta sauce. Perfect comfort food!

Ingredients

• 2kg Oxtail
• 1 Diced Onion
• 2 cloves Garlic
• 1/2 cup Red Wine
• 400g tin Diced Tomatoes
• 2 x 700g bottles Passata
• 2+ litres Water
• 2 Bay Leaf
• 1 stick Celery
• 1 Carrot
• 500g Tomato Paste
• Salt, Pepper, Herb Seasoning
• 1 tblsp Sugar
• 1 knob Butter
• Dash Milk

Instructions

1. Heat a large pot on the stove covering base with olive oil. Once warm add onion and garlic.2. Add oxtail or preferable meat to the pot and seal until lightly caramelised.3. Add in red wine.4. Add passata, tomato paste and diced tomatoes to the pot followed by the water. At this point the sauce should be quite thin and liquidy (see video).5. Throw in celery stick, whole carrot, bay leaves and seasoning followed by milk, butter and sugar.6. Allow sauce to simmer on a medium heat for 3-4 hours stirring constantly. Keep tasting to see whether more seasoning or water is needed.7. Nonna says when you start to see the dark oil on top of the sauce, it's ready. So once ready, serve on top of your favourite pasta.

Details

Prep time: 15 mins Cook time: 3 hour Total time: 3 hour 15 mins Yield:

Homemade Spaghetti: Pasta al' Uovo (Fresh Egg Pasta)

Now correct me if I am wrong, I may be making a huge generalisation here, but I would say pasta is one of those go-to staple dishes for people to fix up in a hurry. Boil the pasta, make a quick sauce and Giuseppe's your uncle no? For the most part I agree, but there is something uber special about a pasta that has taken hours of preparation and cooking, with recipes that have been found and passed down. 

As a child home-made pasta was a big treat, my mum and Nonna never really made it and it was normally Dad's aunty who would send some down for us. I loved it, it was smooth and velvetty and it just tastes different without being so different from store bought pasta if that makes sense. As you probably know cooking with Italians is not for the faint-hearted. One weekend last year Mum and I decided to make pasta and when Italians cook they can't just seem to cook for one meal, we had to make pasta for the WHOLE family including a batch to freeze and let me tell you, when you're using a rubbish manual pasta machine - Barilla wins everytime... hands down. Since getting my gorgeous KitchenAid I have been looking up all the different gadgets and accessories and before the mixer had even arrived I had the pasta attachment in my hot little hand, all automatic, pasta in less than half the time? Sold! 

Last weekend my Nonna and I decided to give the pasta attachments a go and see what all the fuss was about, oh there was a fuss! My Nonna, bless her cotton socks is quite the food judge but as those silky strands came out she even stated in her little accent how beautiful they were. Now I know what you're thinking, it is not all about the machine, and you're absolutely right, the machine means nothing unless you have a good recipe to go with it, well rest assured I think I have found the best! I had my 28 years of pasta experience and my Nonna's 79 years and we're pretty sure this is the one and only pasta recipe you need. I found the recipe in the most beautiful cookbook we had at home affectionately called 'Mangia, Mangia.' This book is like the bible of Italian food, so it's definitely a good one to have at home. 

I used the recipe from Mangia, Mangia, but since I was feeling lazy I used my own method which involved far less kneading and still turned out fabulous! This time I have made a little video to accompany the post. Stay tuned for a post on the sauce - Sugo al Ragu. Enjoy and Happy Cooking!

Please see video above for method.

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Fresh Egg Pasta (Pasta al'Uovo)

by Master Chefette via Mangia Mangia April-28-2015

Probably the best homemade pasta recipe ever!

Ingredients

• 700g Plain Flour (preferably 00 flour)
• 100g Semolina
• 5 Eggs
• Generous Dash Olive Oil
• Pinch Salt

Instructions

1. Place flour and semolina into a mixing bowl, combine and make a well.2. Add 5 eggs to the well followed by oil and salt and 1/2 cup of water.3. Mix on low speed until combined.4. Roll out onto a floured surface and knead for approximately five minutes or until combined and no longer sticky.5. Leave dough to rest for approximately 30 minutes.6. Run small amounts of dough through the KitchenAid lasagne attachment to flatten it out and make sheets. Start at number one which is the thickest, gradually thinning out to number four on the dial.7. Pass the lasagne sheets through the spaghetti or fettuccine attachment and allow to rest on a floured surface. 8. Cook until aldente or for approximately 5 minutes and serve with your favourite sauce.

Details

Prep time: 1 hour Cook time: 5 mins Total time: 1 hour 5 mins Yield: 6-8

Zucchini (Courgette) Slice

Zucchinis or courgettes, whatever you want to call them, are a deliciously versatile vegetable available all year around. Zucchini slice is undoubtedly an Aussie favourite, but to my surprise, the Brits had not heard of our classic dish. I have made this loads of times whilst being here and it has been very well received. I had never considered putting it on the blog as I always thought it was a bit too simple, but as they say, simple things are quite often the best. So here it is... my Zucchini Slice recipe (or for the English playing at home) Courgette Slice!

Ingredients

2 zucchinis finely grated

1 onion finely chopped

150g diced bacon or ham (I prefer bacon)

1 cup (150g) self-raising flour

6 large beaten eggs

1 cup (80g) cheddar cheese

1 clove of crushed garlic

Salt & Pepper

Handful of breadcrumbs (for sprinkling on top)

Method

♥ Preheat oven to 180C and grease and line a rectangular oven dish.

♥ Place zucchini, onion, bacon, flour, eggs, cheese, garlic and salt and pepper in a large bowl. Mix until thoroughly combined.

♥ Pour mixture into oven dish making sure it has been spread evenly, sprinkle the mixture with a generous handful of breadcrumbs.

♥ Bake for 35-40 minutes or until golden brown and a knife comes out clean from the centre.

♥ Cut into squares and serve either hold or cold. Enjoy!

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Devilled Chicken

Hello chefettes! Apologies for the lack of posting lately. As some of you may know, I have moved to the UK, so I have been BUSY, BUSY! I have been here for almost two months now, I have done lots of eating out, so only now, I have started getting back into the kitchen. The food here and grocery stores are quite different to what is available in Australia, but I'm hoping to bring you some new and exciting recipes from the UK which you can try at home. So I bring you my first recipe from England... Devilled Chicken! I thank Waitrose for the inspiration for this recipe. Now I have made some variations from the original recipe and when I first saw the ingredients I was less than inspired, but when it all comes together, this chicken dish is SO flavourful and easy, I'm sure it'll become a staple in your home as it is becoming in mine. Now if you have peeps in your house or little kidlets who don't like spice, you can either reduce the amount of Cayenne Pepper or cut it out completely!

Devilled Chicken

8 chicken thigh fillets (or any chicken pieces)
3 tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
3 tbsp Tomato Sauce (Ketchup)
3 tbsp Apricot Jam
1 1/2 tbsp Soy Sauce
1/2 tsp Cayenne Pepper
Salt & Pepper to season

1. Preheat oven to 180°C, and arrange chicken pieces on a baking tray so they are not touching.
2. Combine Worcestershire sauce, ketchup, jam, soy sauce, cayenne pepper, salt & pepper.
3. (This step really depends on how much time you have) You can either pour the marinade over and pop straight in the oven OR you can pour the marinade over and leave chicken in the fridge until required.
4. Bake in the oven until browned, for example for my 8 chicken thighs I baked them for 45 minutes. (Larger chicken pieces may need extra time)
5. Best served with loaded jacket potatoes!

I hope you enjoy this recipe, I LOVE it! Now I haven't personally tried this yet, but I think this would be great on the BBQ and would really bring out those flavours!

I'm not sure why my iPhone insisted on taking such a dark photo, but the chicken was more of a dark red in "real life" and not so charred looking!