Ingredients:
- Red Wine, cooking or otherwise
- 4 cans of diced tomatoes (Not that plum shit, we want some acidic tomatoes)
- 2 packets of tomato paste
- 2 Steak cuts of any kind, bone + fat on gives more flavour but those tend to be lower quality
- About 6 pork sausages
- 4 carrots
- 2 onions
- Fresh Basil
- Parsley (this is honestly not important but makes for a good garnish)
- Rosemary
- Parmesan Cheese
- Olive oil
- Garlic, as much as you want
- 3 Bayleaves
- Teaspoon of red wine vinegar
- Black Pepper
- Pinch of sugar
- Sea salt or kosher salt or even table salt (though it is impure so aim for the first two)
- Any form of chillies for some supplementary heat (powder, fresh, flakes, etc)
- Pasta noodles (tagliatelle, regular spaghetti, etc)
The very first thing you need to do is roast some garlic. My godmother used to put them in the oven on low heat overnight, but who wants to cook a meal a day in advance? Just cut a head of garlic in half and roast it on max heat for about 30 minutes with a drizzle of olive oil and some foil if you are scared about char. The science behind this is that it makes the garlic sweeter and easier to incorporate into the sauce.
Next, prepare everything immediately, because you cant waste time for the first few steps. Dice 2 onions finely by chopping them in half lengthways, slicing the halves accross first horizontally and then vertically towards the root (the part that makes you cry) and then chopping off in a vertical cross section so that you have little cubes of onion (thanks gordon ramsay)! Throw those onto a low heat pan with a drizzle of olive oil until they are adequately translucent and soft, but not burnt. Let them sit to cool down, until you can place them in a container to be blitzed with a food processor. Do this until you get a fine onion paste which you can set aside for later. The science behind this is due to the fact that onion bits do not break apart in the sauce no matter how well you think you cooked it, no matter what anyone tells you.
Next, the part that will give you popeye arms. Take your 4 carrots and peel them well, or else they wont grate well. Grate them vigourously on a cheese grater until you have finely grated mounds of carrot. Set aside. The science behind this is that the sweetness of the carrot neutralises the acidity of the tomato.
Next, take your meat. Cut the 6 sausages into halves, and the steak into large cubes. Salt them well, and snap a few bayleaves in half to add. Then, probably the most important part because you need to be ready: Get your big ass pot out of the cupboard, set it on the stove on medium to max heat, and once it is warmed up, throw all the meat in there - or one by one if it is too small - and brownthem. Don't cook them. Don't burn them. Brown them. You need to throw them into the pot on a decent heat to get the seared flavour, just for a few seconds before turning them around. The fat should be released and you'll find you have a small pool of fat and little charred bits on the bottom. This is good. Let the fat diccipate if there is too much, then quickly add in a glug of wine before the meat burns. Great, now you have created the base, but you need to still be a bit speedy. The science behind all this is that the charred meat has great flavour, and you deglaze it with wine to have that stuff present in the sauce as well as the wine's own flavour profile.
Next after this, put the carrots and the onion pasteinto the pot and stir it around for a moment.
Next, I hope you opened those cans of tomatoesalready, because you pretty much have to put them in the sauce immediately or the wine will dissipate too much. Anyway, put them in the sauce one by one, then stir well with a wooden spoon as you set the heat to medium-low. Now you can relax, as there is not much that can go wrong with the sauce. The science behind having low heat is that you dont want the sauce to stick to the bottom of the pot, but you still want it to be hot.
Next, while everything is in place, all the spices need to come out. Grab some salt and pepper and put more into the sauce than you think you need. The great thing about tomatoes and salt is that the combination releases Monosodium Glutamate, the best flavour profile in the world. Shake a very small amount of chili powder or equivalent chili ingredient into the dish. Scoop out some garlic into the sauce. Parsley is optional here. Stir all of it into the sauce, and once stirred, go for a second shaking of salt and pepper. Add in a teaspoon of vinegar and a pinch of sugar. The science behind this is that white people are afraid of spices and flavour, so you need to get out of your comfort zone and put in a lot of it since this is a gigantic sauce. Also, the vinegar and sugar just add additional flavour profiles to the sauce, being sour and sweet. They help bring out the tomato as well as balance the saltiness.
Next, my favourite trick in the history of cooking. Take some tomato paste and squeeze it into the empty can of diced tomatoes. Pour half a cup of wine into it and mix well. This creates a flavour depth that is on god tier levels of yum. Then do my second favourite trick, which is to fill the empty can of diced tomatoes you just used with half water, swirl it around to gather the remaining tomato, then put it into the other 3 cans an repeat. Put this all into the sauce. Now the tomato part of the sauce is complete. The science behind this awesome trick is that you maximise the tomato flavour of the dish and get as much sauce as possible to save for later or feed a big family. Some idiots fill the whole 4 cans with water and pour in. Maybe you get a bit more sauce, but the flavour is completely diluted.
Next up is chill time. That whole process should have taken you up to an hour. Now you need to simmer the sauce on as low a heat as possible for over an hour to completely remove excess water and increase the flavour. Dont be lazy on this step, you dont want watery sauce. Make sure you come in every now and again, give a pinch of salt to the dish and stir well. The science behind this comes from italian families, who use way too much fucking salt on everything yet it still tastes good so trust it. They also cook their sauces forever, so have the same patience.
Next as the sauce is about to be done, set up some boiling water. Salt that bitch up well once it has boiled. Put in some pasta, then stir it around a lot and lift it into the air every now and again (this is what japanese ramen chefs do). Cook it until it is al dente, which means a little bit chewy, then strain and put into a bowl. Put in a metric fuck tonne of butter into the pasta for added richness and not to stick together. The science behind this comes from my godmother who used to butter the pasta a lot because italians live life in excess. People say salt water pasta makes no difference but they are coincidentally retarded; the salt improves the saltiness of the pasta overall.
Lastly, these are important niche steps. Put the pasta sauce over the pasta and roll it around. No one serves pasta with the sauce just sitting on top, so don't do that. Garnish it with fresh basil and some parmesan cheese in a bowl so you can add as much as you want. The science behind this is that putting cheese on top will destroy its freshness, and the sauce is already swimming in MSG so go easy on the parmesan.
Additional thoughts:
- This is a really rustic sauce. You could always process the tomatoes and other things to make them more fine.
- I use pork sausages for their flavour. I dont even eat them with the sauce. That said, most traditional ragus use mince, and the pork can just as well be broken up into mince if you want.
- Most importantly is that certain dishes are very lenient as to how much freedom you have when making them. Just use your best judgement when you ask yourself how much olive oil you should put it or whatever, because there is often no definite amount and its up to your taste. This is what I want you to take away from this recipe.
- This recipe is more about technique than ingredients. Wanna skip out on garlic? That's fine. But you have to follow the process to the T, as this is a strenuous 3 hour cooking process that has a lot of quality moves to execute.
- The flavour profiles of the sauce are incredibly complex. Dont fuck with the bitterness by adding too much rosemary or basil, in fact you can even forgo rosemary entirely. You can alternatively, once the pot is simmering, place basil stalks on top and just let them sit and release flavour. I dont do this because only retards cook basil. It just ruins the flavour if you cook it, basil is too gentle. Anyway, enough about basil. My point is you need to balance the strong flavours in this dish very carefully. If your tomatoes are sweet, dont add too much carrot. If the meat youre using is too rich, counteract this with some pepper.
- In the end, the whole dish should have every variety of flavour, sweetness, saltiness, sour, savoury, umami or whatever its called, and bitter.
