Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Slow Braised Meat Sauce

bolognesebianco

I've done some housekeeping. I've added a bunch of blogs to the link list on the right - check them out and see if you find any new favorites! (I can't believe how much easier it's to work with the template in the new blogger - incredible.) I've also added a tiny little Favicon, that hopefully means you'll be seeing my raspberry photo up top in your browser.

I was asked to submit a recipe for Sauce Bolognese, to Swedish food blogger Lisa. However, I'm not a huge bolognese fan. At all. So this sauce, which was the result of several hours in the kitchen yesterday, is most resolutely NOT a bolognese. It is however, very tasty. And just the thing on a cold winter night. If you have a few spare hours - it's not labor intensive, but it does take time - give it a shot! If not, hold out, I'll be posting a super quick pasta sauce recipe in a few days.

Slow Braised Meat Sauce
Serves 4-6

150 g smoked lardons - bacon is fine
5 yellow onions, fairly small
1 tbsp tomato purée
600 g beef - shoulder is good.
4-5 cloves of roasted garlic
3-400 ml white wine (Italian is preferrable)
water
sage
tarragon
thyme
salt
white pepper
1/2 - 1 tbsp white wine vinegar
worcestershire sauce

Start by dicing the lardons very finely, and slice the onions. Fry the lardons in a large pot, no extra fat needed. When it's browned nicely, lower the heat a lot, and add the onions. Pour over about 100 ml of wine, and 200 ml of water. Cover with a tight-fitting lid, and simmer slowly for half an hour.

Add the tomato purée to the pot, and mix well. Cut the beef into three or four large pieces, and add to the pot. Remove any tough or stringy bits. Add the herbs - dried are perfectly fine here, and indeed better than fresh since the fresh would lose their flavor with the long simmer anyway - and the garlic. Add more wine and water, until the meat is just about covered.

Simmer on very low heat for two hours. Check every half hour so it's not drying out.

After two hours, the meat should be really tender. Lift it out, and shred it, using two forks. Put it back into the pot, and add more water to thin out the sauce slightly. Season with salt, white pepper, white wine vinegar, and a splash of worcestershire sauce.

Boil some really good pasta (here'd be a good opportunity to go for homemade, if you can) in plenty of salted water. When the pasta is just tender, drain but save some of the water. Put the pasta back in the pot, add a few spoonfuls of sauce, and mix together with a few spoons of pasta water and a pat of butter until shiny and delicious. Serve with more sauce on top.

Recipe in Swedish:
Stillsamt Kokt Pastasås

4 comments:

Monkey Wrangler said...

Hello Anne! As usual, a very tasty looking post. I'm still a newbie at this blogging thing and you are a consistent example for me of doing it right....thank you for sharing. How can you go wrong when you braise something huh? I did a post during the holidays that included my favorite braised beef sauce: If it looks good to you, let me know and I'll email you a recipe.....

Anne said...

D-man, checked out your post and oh my goodness, that sounded amazing. Do, do, do send me a recipe :) Not that I'm making my own ricotta - but making stock has been on my to-do list for ages. I just need to find bones. And I'm completely putting it off, god knows why really. :)

Monkey Wrangler said...

Hey thanks for the compliments and dropping by, and so quickly (oh yeah, you're probably off of work by this time....) Send an email to: geodylan@comcast.net and I'll gladly write you up a recipe in the next few days.

Madame K said...

That looks like just what I need to eat right now. A big bowl, here please!