An authentic old fashioned tasting pasta recipe that takes time and effort to make but in return gives an immense rewards in taste. What is an old fashion tasting? It is like old fashion anything. You had to have lived through it, feel and experience it. Sorts of you have to be old-ish. I am not that old (ha, ha how is that for a personal reflection), but old or lucky enough to have experienced some unforgettable scents and flavours. I remember how powerful and exciting even freshly baked bread or salami smelled 50 or so years ago. As my mother would return home from our town grocery store, carrying grocery bags she would just open the door and I could instantly feel the fragrance of what she had in her bags. You could for example smell salami from 10 feet away, today it has no smell if you put it right under your nose.
Fruits, vegetables, cooked food had a distinct recognizable aroma and tasted unlike anything we have these days. Sometime I catch myself thinking if that was all for real or is it just my imagination? Am I exaggerating and unjustifiably romanticizing about good flavors of my youth?
Maybe. Well, then I run into recipe like this one, Italian Pasta Bolognese with a rich, flavorful beef ragu. To me this is not a new taste. It is familiar, and just reconfirms that indeed that is the way the meat sauces use to taste. I tasted it, and I did not forget it.
This wonderful dish is part of lost art of cooking in time where everything has to be fast and easy. For change, take your time, perform the steps correctly, and you will set yourself up for a memorable culinary experience.
The beef ragu sauce is served with either Tagliatelle or Pappardelle pasta. Enjoy this great recipe that I have adapted from chef Greg Easter!
| Prep Time | 60 minutes |
| Cook Time | 11 hours |
| Passive Time | 10 hours |
| Servings |
servings
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- 450 g beef short ribs
- 1 tbsp sea salt coarse
- 1 tsp paprika
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 300 ml chicken stock or 300 ml water with Knorr chicken stock cube
- 90 g onion sliced in onion rings
- 400 g Italian tomato purée passata
- 90 ml red wine
- 2 bay leaves
- 2 garlic cloves peeled and quartered
- 20 g unsalted butter
- 1 head of fennel cleaned and roughly chopped
- 2 tsp granulated sugar
- 60 g pancetta sliced thin
- 30 g shallots roughly chopped
- black pepper freshly ground
- fennel green frond few pieces
- 60 g celery root evenly cut in 2.5 mm (1/8") cubes
- 60 g carrots evenly cut in 2.5 mm (1/8") cubes
- 60 g onion evenly cut in 2.5 mm (1/8") cubes
- 120 g Italian Tagliatelle Pasta or Italian Pappardelle Pasta
- 2 tbsp 10% half & half cream
- 90 ml red wine
- 3 tbsp grated Parmesan
Ingredients
Beef Ragu Base
Pancetta and Fennel
Blanched Mirepoix
Additional Ingredients
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- Dry out the ribs using a kitchen paper towel. Rub the ribs with salt and paprika.
- Add olive oil to preheated medium size skillet and brown the ribs over medium high heat. Remove the ribs and set them aside.
- Deglaze brown bits in the skillet by using the chicken stock.
- Put the cut onions at the bottom of a medium size (about 2 L ) braising pot. Put the ribs on top of the onions and add tomato purée, deglazed juices in chicken stock, red wine, bay leaves and garlic.
- In order to seal the braiser properly, cover the pot with parchment paper and then add aluminum foil on top of it. This way you will create a safe non reactive environment for braising. Put the lid on and braise for 9-11 hours at 120ºC (265ºF).
- Remove and discard bones and bay leaves.
- Transfer the meat and the rest of the contents to a blender and blend for 1-2 minutes to create a smooth textured beef ragu sauce. Refrigerate until ready for use.
- Melt butter in a medium size pan, add fennel, sugar. Start browning fennel over medium high heat (6.5 out of 10), stirring occasionally. Once fennel starts browning, reduce heat to medium low (4 out of 10). Total browning time is about 15 minutes.
- Add and stir pancetta, shallots, black pepper to taste, and few fresh fennel green fronds.
- When pancetta is cooked, transfer everything and grind in a food processor. Refrigerate until ready for use.
- Bring water in a medium size sauce pot, to a simmer. Add celery root and after 30 seconds add carrots. After another 15 seconds, add onions and cook for 15 more seconds. Drain and strain the vegetables. Refrigerate until ready for use.
- Assemble all the ingredients (that includes): beef ragu base, pancetta and fennel mixture, blanched mirepoix, pasta, cream, red wine, Parmesan cheese.
- In a large covered pot, bring salted water to a rolling boil.
- In a preheated medium size pan, add 2 tbsp of olive oil and 4 tbsp of blanched mirepoix, mixture of sautéed vegetables. Sautée vegetables for 2-3 minutes over medium high heat (7 out of 10) until you get some color on the vegetables.
- Add 4 (40g each) muffin nests of Italian Tagliatelle Pasta. Stirring occasionally cook as specified on packaging, normally about 5 minutes.
- Add 2-3 tbsp of pancetta and fennel mixture, stir and sautée for another minute or so making sure that vegetables developed some golden colors.
- Add 90 ml of red wine, stir and let most of the alcohol evaporate, about 10-15 seconds.
- Add 250 ml of beef ragu base sauce, 2 tbsp of cream and cook for another 2-3 minutes.
- Stir in some red hot pepper flakes to taste.
- Transfer pasta to the sauce pan and mix well with the sauce. Add 3 tbsp of Parmesan cheese and cook for a minute or so, stirring constantly. As pasta dries out add 125 ml of pasta water, stir and cook until it comes together, another 1-2 minutes.
- Serve warm and enjoy with a glass of red wine!
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