Ragù Napoletano

Name: Ragù Napoletano
Yield: Serves 15 Makes about 1.5 litres
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 375 ml red wine; 50 g proper breadcrumbs; 70 g raisins; 750 g piece of braising veal or beef (shin, flank or brisket); 2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley; 100 g lard, or 120 ml extra virgin olive oil; 750 g braising pork, skin on if possible (belly, ribs, shin or shoulder); 2 litres passata, or 2 kg fresh tomatoes, puréed whole; 2 medium onions (400 g), finely chopped; 20 basil leaves; 70 g pine nuts; 1 clove garlic, chopped

Preparation info

Serves
15
Makes about 1.5 litres

Difficulty
Complex

Appears in

The Geometry of Pasta

By Caz Hildebrand and Jacob Kenedy

Published 2010

About

This sauce is unlike most ragùs, in that the meat is cooked whole, the sauce then used for pasta and the braised pork and veal served as the second course. It is also called guardaporta (doorman’s sauce), perhaps because it takes so long to cook and needs so little attention it could bubble away whilst he watched the door.

Ingredients

750 g piece of braising veal or beef (shin, flank or brisket)
750 g braising pork, skin on if

Main course

Method

Normally, three pieces of meat might be braised together – a hunk of pork and two braciole, one of pigskin and the other beef (elsewhere in Italy these are shoulder chops, in Naples rolls of stuffed meat). Here I omit the pigskin, but it is delicious and will reward the adventurous. Use a sharp knife to open out the veal into a flattish sheet. Stuff with the pine nuts, raisins, breadcrum