Beef Ragu

I am rarely interested in large hunks of meat and I'm usually happy with a glass or two of wine, all of which makes me a pretty cheap date should you want to take me out to dinner. However, every once in a while I spy a meat recipe that strikes my fancy, say pulled pork or lamb flatbreads. This ragu recipe caught my eye because it not only looked succulent and juicy and perfect for a rainy day, but because it's very little effort.

Most ragu recipes call for a combination of ground pork and veal, but this one calls for chunks of stew beef. Technically a ragu is simply a meat sauce cooked with tomatoes and vegetables, and can be made with anything from sausage to lamb shanks to oxtails. I'd argue that in this case the long braise of the meat in the oven makes this especially good. And yes, this does take about 4 hours in the oven, so set it aside for a lazy Sunday or a day when you're home early from work.

But besides that long stint in the oven, there's very little else you have to besides chop up some carrots and brown the meat. Also, the recipe makes a lot, so you can eat it all week or, if you have recipe ADD like me, you can freeze half the batch for later. The rich flavor works perfectly when paired with the neutrality of pasta and tamed with a sprinkling of cheese.



Beef Ragu
This is just as tasty with lamb. Also, if you (tragically) happen to be low on wine, try combining 2/3 a cup Marsala with 1 1/3 cup low-sodium beef stock.

2 pounds stew beef, cut in chunks
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 onion
2 sprigs fresh rosemary
2 tablespoons fresh sage
8 cloves garlic
3-4 large carrots, peeled
Olive oil
2 cups red wine
1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes

1. Pat the beef chunks dry with a paper towel, liberally coat with salt and pepper and set aside. Peel and coarsely chop the onions, and chop the garlic. Chop the carrot into thin rounds.

2. Place an oven-proof Dutch oven or heavy stockpot over medium-high heat, and add olive oil to cover the bottom thinly. When oil is hot, add the lamb and brown deeply. Do this in batches if necessary. Don't worry about drying out the meat — you want it browned darkly for good flavor (~10 minutes).

3. When the meat is thoroughly browned, add the onions, rosemary, sage, garlic, and carrots. Reduce heat to medium-low and sauté until vegetables are softened, about 10 minutes. Add wine and continue to simmer until liquid has reduced by half, about 10 minutes. Add the tomatoes and their juices to the pot.

4. Bring to a simmer, then cover and place in a 275-degree oven for 3 to 4 hours. The longer it cooks the more tender it will be. Check the pan every hour and a bit of water if it starts to look dry. When ready to serve, go through with two forks and shred any remaining chunks of meat. Taste and season if necessary with additional salt and pepper. Serve over pasta with freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

Asparagus, Peas, and Pearl Pasta in Parmesan Broth

I'm sorry spring, I thought we were on such good terms? We were getting along so well, with your sunny 70 degree days, my morning coffee on the back deck as I check on the plants in the cool first light. My strolls to the market for asparagus and peas and strawberries, reading a book in a park in the afternoon sun. What happened? You seem to have disappeared and left a fiery disposition of 105 degree heat and 100% humidity, interspersed with spectacular lightening shows and freak rain storms. I didn't think it would end so soon. After our brief 3-week romance you up and left me for summer.

Despite being jilted by spring, the markets still bear her vestige in the last of the asparagus and pea shoots and morel mushrooms of the season. Summer breathed it's fire breath, sweat trickled down my back and the creases of my knees every time I ventured outside, the market lady with her baskets of tatsoi, mizuna, kale, and mache packed up at 11 am, when even constant sprinkles of ice water couldn't keep anything from wilting.

However, the dinner I cobbled together out of items in my pantry, on an evening when it was bearable enough to contemplate eating something besides sliced melon or ice cream, managed to be rather inspired. I've adopted the Italian tradition of tossing rinds from old pieces of parmesan into my freezer and later using them to make parmesan broth. Made simply by simmering parmesan rinds in stock (homemade is best but storebought is fine), this is one of those kitchen tricks to have in your arsenal, because everything tastes better in parmesan broth. In this case, a quick blanch of asparagus and peas and some pearl pasta I found in my cabinet. I could pick out some cliched expression about refreshing spring food or how this was more than the sum of its parts, but I think you get my drift- it was easy, fast, and delicious. Spring may have left but she still tastes good.

Asparagus, Peas, and Pearl Pasta in Parmesan Broth
I had wanted to include some pancetta in this recipe but didn't have any on hand when I made it. If you do, saute the pancetta in a pot, then add the stock and proceed with the recipe as directed.

2 big hunks parmesan rind, with about an inch of cheese still attached
6 cups good quality vegetable or chicken broth
1 cup acini de pepe, Israeli couscous, or moghrabiyya
1 cup fresh or frozen peas
a handful of asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1 inch pieces
half a lemon
a few sprigs mint
salt and pepper to taste

1. Place the stock in a pot and bring to a simmer. Add the parmesan rinds and add the pasta. Simmer the mixture until the pasta is al dente (follow directions on the pasta package for time). Add peas and asparagus and cook 2-3 more minutes, until just tender. Add a squeeze of lemon juice to the broth. Taste for seasoning. Remove parmesan rinds and discard. There may be a few stringy cheese bits in the broth, that's ok. Ladle into bowls, garnish with mint, serve immediately.

Ker-plunk.

The ancient Romans believed walnuts were food for the gods, while mortals had to subsist on lesser nuts like beechnuts and chestnuts. I received a more literal reminder that fall is walnut season, in the form of a very hard walnut shell falling, ker-plunk, on my head. Rubbing my temple, another fell, plop, on the sidewalk next to me, courtesy of a squirrel perched above me, feasting on those heavenly nuts, straight from the boughs of a walnut tree.

Often considered one of the world's healthiest foods, the fresh walnuts we picked up at a local farm recently were full of a rich flavor I'd never experienced before. I shelled a bunch and tucked them into the freezer for storage, and then I found a recipe for pasta with walnut sauce that sounded delicious. It was one of those happy occasions when I had all the ingredients on hand already, and I decided to add cubes of roasted butternut squash since I wanted a nice fall vegetable to round out the dish.



Dipping my finger in the sauce to taste, I knew we had a winner on hand. Rich with nuts, cream, and spice, with a slight sweetness from the wine, it was luxuriously good. While I love the slight chewiness of the mafalda pasta we had in the cabinet, I think this would really be best with fresh pasta, either handmade or from your grocery or local pasta maker. And while it all sounds a bit fancy, with nuts and cream and such, it's really quite simple: the sauce comes together in seconds in the processor, and then all you have to do is roast the squash and cook the pasta, easy enough for a weeknight. For an extra touch, you can garnish with a sage leaf fried in a little butter.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that the walnut sauce has a myriad of other uses: you can spread it on toasted bread, toss it with roasted vegetables, or even turn it into an amuse-like soup, garnished with pomegranate seeds.


Pasta with Butternut Squash and Walnut Sauce
A pasta dish just right for fall. The walnut sauce is wonderful and you'll quickly find a lot of other uses for it besides pasta. If you have truffe oil or walnut oil, they make a wonderful addition to the walnut sauce, just use a few drops along with the olive oil.

1 lb fresh pasta, like tagliatelle or fettucine
1 medium butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and diced
1 tbl chopped fresh sage
for walnut sauce:
8 oz (about 1 cup) shelled walnuts
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
salt and pepper
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup light cream
1/4 cup late harvest white wine (like Muscato or Riesling), optional

1. Preheat the oven to 400F. Drizzle a little olive oil on a baking sheet, scatter the chopped squash, sage, and some salt and roll them around to coat. Roast the squash until browned and tender, shaking the pan a couple times during the process, about 45 minutes.
2. Make the sauce: Lightly toast the walnuts. Place in a food processor with the cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and pepper and pulse until ground. Drizzle in the olive oil, cream and wine with processor running, only until the paste is emulsified. (If you don't have wine on hand you can use broth or water.) You'll have about 2 cups sauce.
3. Cook pasta according to package directions. When pasta is done, drain and toss with roast squash and 1 1/2 cups of the walnut sauce. Serve immediately.

Walnut Soup: Thin the walnut sauce with a bit of chicken broth, be careful not to thin the soup too much of it may be watery (about 3/4 cup broth for 2 cups sauce). Serve in small demi-tasse cups garnished with pomegranate seeds as an amuse.

Roast Beets with Walnut Sauce: Roast beets until tender, then peel and dice. Toss with walnut sauce.

Oh Sweet 100

I first read about sweet 100 tomatoes in Mario Batali's Babbo Cookbook, and later in the Zuni Cafe Cookbook, two splattered, well-loved members of my cookbook collection. I have to admit, at first I thought they were pretentious, calling for a specific kind of tomato, surely any cherry tomato would do? But when I was planting tomatoes in the spring and saw sweet 100's at the nursery I immediately chose them; just the name is evocative enough. Now I can tell you that if you ever grow any tomatoes, grow sweet 100's, they're almost candylike in their sweetness and best of all they are amazingly prolific, you can even grow them in pots on your fire escape.

As the end of summer approached, I heard many people bemoaning the end of summer heirlooms, while others even admitted they'd be relieved when tomato-fanaticism was over. But anyone who actually grows tomatoes knows otherwise, just when I thought I could pull them out and plant things for fall, my tomato plants set all new blooms. The slightly cooler nights help set tomato blossoms (creating the fruits), so that when temperatures drop slightly at then end of August you've got a whole new crop to look forward to in October or up until the frost free date. Connoisseurs know that fall tomatoes are actually the best tomatoes.



I let some of my tomatoes go (goodbye hard to grow Brandywines) to make room for broccoli and beets, but those sweet 100's are sticking around for a while, mainly because we love them in this particular dish. I first started making a side dish of sauteed tomatoes, and we fell in love with the simplicity of just warm garlicky tomatoes, especially the way the little ones burst in your mouth. It was the obvious next step to make it a sauce for pasta, in our case whatever spaghetti or fettucini was in the cabinet. It sounds rather obvious, but this simple combination is truly spectacular.

A few notes on the recipe: I generally shy away from olive oil by the cup-full, but you really do need to be generous here, and don't worry you won't ingest it all. That oil is going to infuse with garlic and then it's going to coat those wonderful tomatoes and then it's going to coat the pasta, and you really don't want to have to worry about anything sticking, and when you transfer the pasta to your serving bowl any excess oil will stay behind in the pan.

When I'm feeling zealous I like to add a crunchy breadcrumb topping to this simple pasta dish. Toasted breadcrumbs (specifically pangrattato) are a traditional addition to pasta in Sicily. Whenever I've made pasta dishes with breadcrumbs, the crispy crumbs just went limp and mushy in the sauce, I always thought I was doing something wrong, but I recently learned from Amanda that this is actually the way the dish is supposed to be, the breadcrumbs were a way for poor people to bulk-up the dish. Personally, I don't like soggy breadcrumbs, so I devised my own solution by adding some ground almonds to the topping which stay nice and crunchy atop the pasta. I like the contrast they add, but the dish is good even without them.

You've got a good bit of tomato season left, and if you make this you're guaranteed a few moans of gustatory pleasure, which is pretty impressive for a 5 minute pasta dish. I'm not saying you have to use sweet 100's, any cherry tomato will do, but I know I'll never go back.

I'm off to Portland, Oregon, for a few days, so if I'm a bit slow in posting and responding to comments I hope you'll understand.


Pasta with Sweet 100 Tomatoes and Crunchy Breadcrumbs
The ultimate seasonal version of classic pasta and tomatoes, we like to make it with the sweet 100 tomatoes that come in September. Serves 4.

1 lb pasta, like spaghetti or bucatini
1/4 cup olive oil
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2 pints cherry tomatoes, like Sweet 100's
salt and pepper
for the topping:
olive oil
1 1/2 cups fresh breadcrumbs
1/2 cup finely chopped or roughly ground almonds
1 tbl minced fresh basil or garlic chives

1. For the topping: Combine the breadcrumbs, almonds, and herbs in a bowl with some salt and pepper, rub everything together with your finger tips to combine. Heat a glug of olive oil in a saute pan. Add the breadcrumb mixture to the pan and cook, stirring frequently, until the mixture is well toasted and browned. Put the bread crumbs back in the bowl and set aside.
2. Halve about half the tomatoes, leaving the smaller ones whole.
3. Set a large pot of water to boil and cook the spaghetti according to package instructions until al dente. Meanwhile, wipe out the skillet you used for the breadcrumbs and heat the 1/4 cup of olive oil in it. Add the garlic and cook over low heat until the garlic is soft, golden, and fragrant (but not too browned!), about two minutes. Add the tomatoes and cook, swirling the pan occasionally, until the tomatoes are just about to burst. Season with salt and pepper.
4. When the pasta is done, use tongs to transfer it to the pan with the cherry tomatoes. Toss everything together over the heat just to combine, about a minute. Divide the mixture among serving bowls and sprinkle with breadcrumb topping, serve immediately.

See Also: Growing Fall Tomatoes
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