Food and Travel & Food and Travel
A wide bowl of pappardelle coated in dark glossy beef and pork ragu with a little Parmesan
main Italian-inspiredBritish

Restaurant ragù

Beef shin and chuck, pork belly, pancetta, soffritto, milk, wine, and stock cook low and slow into a glossy meat-first sauce balanced with balsamic gastrique.

Prep45 min
Cook330 min
Oven120°C
Servings12
Cook mode

Adapted for the home kitchen from Fallow's restaurant ragù

Ingredients

Written for a 7 L pot

Units
Servings
12

Ragù

  • 1 kg coarsely minced beef, equal parts shin and chuck
  • 400 g skinless pork belly, diced
  • 100 g pancetta, diced
  • 200 g onion, finely diced
  • 150 g carrot, finely diced
  • 150 g celery, finely diced
  • 2 garlic cloves, finely grated
  • 45 ml extra-virgin olive oil
  • 30 ml neutral oil
  • 80 g tomato purée
  • 400 g passata
  • 200 ml red wine
  • 300 ml whole milk
  • 500 ml chicken or beef stock
  • 1 Parmesan rind
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 0.5 g grated nutmeg
  • 60 g cold unsalted butter
  • 18 g fine salt

Balsamic gastrique

  • 100 ml balsamic vinegar
  • 50 g caster sugar

Method

  1. Render pancetta with olive oil in a heavy pot over low heat. Add onion, carrot, celery, and 4 g salt; sweat 20 minutes until pale, soft, and sweet. Add garlic for 2 minutes, then lift the soffritto out.
  2. Heat the pot hard with neutral oil. Brown the beef in batches until its moisture is gone and a dark fond develops. Return all beef, add pork belly, and warm through.
  3. Stir in tomato purée and cook until brick red. Add 150 ml milk and reduce until absorbed. Deglaze with wine and reduce by half.
  4. Return the soffritto. Add passata, stock, Parmesan rind, bay, nutmeg, and 10 g salt. Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook at 120°C for 4½ hours, stirring hourly.
  5. Boil balsamic and sugar for 2 to 3 minutes until lightly syrupy; cool.
  6. Remove rind and bay. Stir in the remaining milk and cold butter. Add gastrique a teaspoon at a time until the richness tastes balanced; season.

Notes

  • This is deliberately meat-forward; serve 120 to 150 g sauce per person with pasta, polenta, or gnocchi.
  • Cool leftovers quickly in shallow containers. Refrigerate four days or freeze three months.
  • The batch is large because that is how Fallow published it. Halving works in a 5 L pot.

Sources used

Good with

Sources consulted

Fallow supplies the principal amounts; milk and finishing butter are normalized to the stated batch.

From Christoph Mayer

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