La Genovese Recipes

Steps:

• Using the food processor with the metal blade, mince the bacon and garlic cloves together into a fine pestata (paste). Since you have the machine out, use it to chop the carrot, celery, and onions if you want (you don't need to wash the bowl). Process each vegetable separately. Cut the carrot and the celery stalk into chunks before chopping; pulse each to small bits. Chunk up the onions into 1-inch pieces, put them into the food-processor bowl in batches, and pulse them to 1/4-inch bits, not too fine. Put the onions in a big bowl-you will have 4 to 5 quarts of chopped onion when you are done.
• (Of course, you may shred and chop the vegetables by hand, or even mince the bacon-garlic paste with a heavy cleaver, as I did growing up. It takes longer but is quite satisfying.)
• Rinse and dry the pork, then sprinkle about 1/2 teaspoon salt lightly on all surfaces, patting it on. Pour the oil into the braising pan, and set it over medium heat. Before it gets hot, lay the pork in and brown it-lightly-turning it after a minute or so on each side.
• While the meat is browning, scrape the pestata into the pan bottom; spread it out and let the bacon begin to render. Drop in peperoncino now, if you want some heat in the salsa; toast it on the pan bottom.
• After 3 minutes or so of browning the pork, drop the tomato paste into the fat; stir and caramelize a minute. Dump the shredded carrot and celery into the pan bottom; stir for a minute, just to get them cooking. (Keep turning the meat so it browns evenly and slowly.)
• Now scrape the chopped onions into the pan, all around the meat. Sprinkle the remaining coarse salt over the onions; raise the heat a bit, stirring the onions up from the bottom and mixing them with the oil, pestata, and tomato paste. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring, for about 5 minutes, until the onions are all hot and starting to sweat. Cover, and turn the heat to medium-low.
• The pork is now going to cook for about 3 hours. Leave it alone for the first 45 minutes, then uncover, turn the meat, and stir the onions. They should be wilting and releasing liquid; if there is any sign of burning, lower the heat. Cover, and cook for another 45 minutes, turn the meat, and stir the onions. They should be quite reduced in volume, in a thick, simmering sauce. Stir in 2 cups of hot broth, bringing the liquid higher around the pork.
• Cook, covered, for another 45 minutes, then stir. If the sauce level has dropped a lot and is beginning to stick, stir in another cup or two of broth. Taste, and add more salt if necessary.
• Cover, and cook another 1/2 hour to 45 minutes. Check the consistency of the onions-they should be melting into the sauce, and the meat should be soft when pierced with a fork. If satisfactory, remove from the heat; otherwise, cook longer, adding more broth, or, if the sauce seems thin, uncover and cook to reduce it.
• As a primo, first course, for six: Remove 2 cups of the fresh onion sauce from the pot and put it in a large skillet. Cook 1 pound of rigatoni or other pasta, and toss it in the skillet with the simmering sauce. Finish with extra-virgin olive oil and freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano or Grana Padano.
• As a secondo, main meat course, for six or more: Remove the pork from the braising pot and cut out the blade bone (just lift the cooked meat off it and remove the bone). Slice the pork against the grain in 1/3-inch-thick slices, and moisten with hot sauce from the pot.
• As a meaty sauce for pasta: Traditionally, the leftover meat and sauce from Sunday dinner were combined and served another day as a dressing for pasta, but you can dedicate any amount of Salsa Genovese to this marvelous mixture.
• If you want to make this with freshly braised meat and sauce, let cool briefly, then pull the meat apart with forks (or fingers) into shreds, about 1/2 inch wide or more, and toss with the sauce. Refrigerate or freeze for another day.
• To dress 1 pound of pasta with meaty sauce: Heat 2 cups of sauce in a large skillet; refresh and extend it with a bit of extravirgin olive oil and broth, and bring to a simmer. I like to serve this with rigatoni or ziti. Fresh garganelli or cavatappi would also be a fine pasta choice. Finish with more oil and freshly grated cheese.
• You'll notice that I put coarse salt, rather than granular salt, on large meat cuts and whole birds that roast or braise for a long time. At home, I use either coarse sel de mer-sea salt with crystals formed naturally in coastal flats-or kosher salt, which crystallizes in the manufacturing process. The crystal structure adheres to the meat better than ordinary salt; real sea-salt crystals, my favorite, have more flavor too. I also prefer coarse salt for finishing-that is, for sprinkling on hot foods after they come out of the pot or pan.
• I recommend that you have at least one of these coarse crystal salts in the kitchen. If a recipe calls for coarse salt but you have none, use ordinary granular salt but reduce the amount by a third or a half: since granular salt is smaller and more dense, a spoonful of it (or any measured amount) adds more saltiness than an equal measure of bigger, airier salt crystals.

Steps:

• Heat oil in a large pot over medium heat. Cook pancetta until most of fat is rendered out, about 6 minutes. Remove cooked pancetta with a slotted spoon and save.
• Raise heat to high and transfer meat to the pot. Season with salt. Cook and stir until liquid releases from beef and begins to evaporate, and meat browns, 10 to 15 minutes.
• Reduce heat to medium-high. Add celery, carrots, reserved cooked pancetta, salt and pepper. Cook and stir about 5 minutes. Add a heaping tablespoon of tomato paste, bay leaf, and white wine. Cook and stir, scraping up the brownings from the bottom of the pan, 2 to 3 minutes. Add sliced onions. Reduce heat to medium. Cover pot and cook 30 minutes without stirring. After 30 minutes, stir onions and meat until well mixed. Cover again, and cook another 30 minutes. Stir.
• Reduce heat to low and cook uncovered 8 to 10 hours, stirring occasionally. Skim off fat as mixture cooks. If sauce seems to reduce too much, add water or broth as needed to maintain a sauce-like consistency. Cook until beef and onions seem to melt into each other.
• Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Cook rigatoni in the boiling water, stirring occasionally until just barely al dente, 10 to 12 minutes. Drain.
• Add rigatoni to the sauce and cook until heated through. Serve topped with a pinch of marjoram and freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.

Steps:

• With a mezzaluna or a very sharp knife, mince the salt pork, salame, and prosciutto to a fine paste. In a terra-cotta or enameled cast-iron casserole-just large enough to hold the beef and its accessories-warm the olive oil over a medium flame and soften the paste in it.
• Pat the beef dry with absorbent paper towels and brown it in the fragrant fat, crusting it well on all sides-a process that takes at least 10 minutes. Remove the now deeply crusted beef to a holding plate.
• Add the onions, carrots, and celery to the pot, rolling them about in the fat, softening them without coloring them. Add the tomato puree, the sea salt, and the wine, stirring, scraping at the residue in the pan and letting the sauce simmer gently for 1 minute before returning the beef to the pot.
• Cover the casserole tightly and, over a low flame, braise the beef, its liquids barely simmering, for 2 1/2 hours.
• When the beef is fork-tender, it is properly cooked. Should it require longer braising, add a few tablespoonfuls more of wine, replace the lid, and let the whole continue to cook for 20 to 30 minutes more. Permit the dish a 1/2 hour's repose. I would never think to strain the sauce of all the lush debris remaining from the aromatics, the salame, and the prosciutto. I suppose, though, a classic Swiss cook might think to improve it by straining it. I'd hope for his sake that he might spread the resultant paste on a heft of warm toast and eat it for his own private lunch. Should you wish to precede its presentation with pasta, see the instructions on page 71.

Steps:

• Pour a kettle of boiling water into a very large pan until half full. Return to the boil, then add the potatoes and spaghetti, and a little salt. Cook for 10 minutes until the potatoes and pasta are almost tender. Tip in the green beans and cook for 5 minutes more.
• Drain well, reserving 4 tbsp of the cooking liquid. Return the potatoes, pasta and beans to the pan, then stir in the fresh pesto and reserved cooking liquid. Season to taste, divide between four serving plates and drizzle with a little olive oil.