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