Nonna Pina’s Ragu Sauce

Easy

5h 15m

Nonna Pina’s Ragu Sauce

Ragu is a common name for the traditional Italian meat sauce. Pair ragu with your favourite pasta and enjoy the delicacy of this classic dish.

Ingredients

  • 5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 small onion, finely chopped
  • 1 handful small celery, finely chopped of fresh basil
  • 250 g beef cheeks
  • 500 g pork spare ribs
  • 2 large pork and fennel sausages
  • 2 tbsp Mutti tomato paste 100 ml
  • 3 1/2 fl good quality red wine
  • 3 x 400 g passata
  • Salt and pepper
  • 50 g pecorino for grating
  • 500 g Fresh Macaroni or 400 g dried pasta

Did you know?

Did you know?

Italian ragu was created by Alberto Alvisi, cook for the Cardinal of Imola.

Made with

Method

  • 1

    Heat half the extra virgin olive oil in a large saucepan. Add the beef cheeks, ribs and sausages and fry for a few minutes, turning, to brown well.

  • 2

    Remove meat and set aside. Add remaining olive oil followed by the onion, celery, bay leaves and cook until softened.

  • 3

    Add the meat back into the pot followed by the tomato paste. Cook for about 1 minute then and the red wine, cook for a few minutes until the liquid has reduced slightly by half.

  • 4

    Add the passata to the pot and bring to the boil, reduce the heat. Have your oven pre-heated to 140 deg. Place lid on top of the saucepan and cook in the oven for 5 hours. Every hour remove lid and give it a stir. Make sure if your oven seems to be drying the sauce out lower the temperature.

  • 5

    Once cooked, Lift the meat out of the pot onto a serving plate and keep warm.

  • 6

    Cook pasta in salted boiling water for about 2 minutes. If using dried pasta cook according to the instructions. Add the cooked pasta to the sauce and stir together to coat all the pasta. Season with salt, pepper and add fresh basil. Add half the grated pecorino and mix well.

  • 7

    To serve Italian ragu, ladle the pasta into four serving bowls, top with some of the meat and more pecorino if you wish.

Ragu is one of the specialties of Italian kitchen

Ragu or ragù is another classic example of simple, yet mouthwateringly delicious Italian cuisine. Ragu is meat sauce that is usually paired with pasta, yet another trademark of the Italian kitchen. The original creator of ragu is said to be Alberto Alvisi, who was the Cardinal of Imola’s cook back in the 18th century. Like many other Italian dishes, ragù too has its regional versions like ragù alla bolognese, Neapolitan ragù and ragù alla Barese.

Ragu is a diverse dish and can be enjoyed as well on family dinners as on more special occasions. So the next time you want to impress your friends or family with a real treat, our suggestion is this amazing version of the world-famous ragu.

Ragu with intense essence of the tomato

Nonna Pina’s pasta con ragu gets some extraordinary color, flavor, and texture from Muttis Double Concentrated Tomato Paste, a product especially suitable for dishes needing very long cooking times such as ragù. For 1 kg of Double Concentrate we need 5.5 kg of fresh Italian tomatoes.

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