Tuesday, April 07, 2009

MMMMeaty pasta sauce

I've read a lot of recipes for meaty pasta sauces; like this spaghetti & meatballs from Gourmet, with nearly 5 pounds of ground meat, or this one from Saveur, with not only meatballs, but also sausage in the sauce, and I've made my share of them. What I've read and never tried was the kind of sauce where a meat on the bone is simmered in the sauce, then taken out, deboned and shredded, and added back, kinda like like this spare rib sauce from molto Mario. When I worked at the Ovens of Brittany here in Madison, we did a rib special - odd as that may seem for a French country restaurant - and Anna, one of the cooks, who had grown up in the old Italian neighborhood here in Madison, Greenbush (and now runs a bar by the same name), always snagged any leftover rib bones to simmer in tomato sauce.
Sometimes those recipes with all the meat sound too rich to me, but I liked this one from Bon Appetit. I had sausage in the freezer, frozen from last fall's farmer's market, and several cans of tomatoes (inherited from KT & TL), and parsley - I like how this recipe has you serve the ragu over whole wheat pasta, to which you have added olive oil, chopped parsely, and grated cheese. I did not use quite as much meat as specified - probably only about 1 1/2 pounds sausage, instead of two; only about 3 pounds beef short ribs instead of 3 1/2 - 3 3/4.

I sauced a pound of pasta, served three people with lots leftover, and have a quart of sauce to put in the freezer. I think it will be reincarnated as lasagna - I also have a butternut squash sauce (pureed squash, onions & garlic, and jalapeño, with cream and chicken broth) and some mushroom sauce down there - not sure they could ALL go in one lasagna, but some combining could get interesting.

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