[Sca-cooks] Gawdawful spaghetti sauce- OOP

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Jun 2, 2006, at 10:04 AM, Saint Phlip wrote:

> Due to household dietary restrictions (and groceries available) I  
> had Italian hot sausage for the meat (WAY too much fennel ion it,  
> which I hate), but no mushrooms, onions, or garlic, because of  
> allergies or other unpleasant physical reactions on the part of my  
> diners. Most green herbs are OK.
>
> Guys, I'm not kidding you. This was even worse than the time that  
> availability required me to use Spam (shudder) for the meat. Even  
> Mrs Dash didn't help.
>
> Any suggestions?

Well, as Italian pasta sauces (I mean, distinguishing them from  
American versions) tend to be only one of three or four flavors a  
pasta dish ought to include, a sauce with, shall we say, failure to  
meet the expected flavor profile, can be compensated for.

As Abbot Nicolo suggests, the onion/garlic thing is tough, but not  
insurmountable. Basically what you want to do is move your sights a  
bit from Southern to Northern Italy, where a meat ragu is more likely  
to be similar to a pot roast gravy -- meat-flavored juice with tomato  
accents, rather than tomato sauce flavored with a bit of meat.

I'd keep the red wine, use plenty of meat (and obviously, the less  
fennel it contains, for those who don't like it, the better), and add  
the herbs at the end. Say, something like this:

Brown your meat (you might give serious thought to a hunk of beef  
chuck for this) in some fat with a good flavor: good olive oil that  
tastes like olives, bacon or salt pork fat, even butter. Add finely  
chopped carrots and celery (onion would be good, too, in this combo,  
but we know it can't be there, so add what sweetness you can by other  
means), brown them a little. Deglaze the pan with a goodly splash of  
red wine, maybe as much as a cup or more. Probably not much more,  
though. Add some beef stock and let it stew. The theory is, if you're  
using a chunk of meat, you want to stew it slowly until the meat is  
about ready to come apart. At some point the meat will get torn apart  
in some fashion and stirred back into the sauce, or if you're using  
ground meat, it'll cook faster and you won't need to do that. But a  
hunk of beef or pork is better.

If using raw tomatoes, add them before the wine. If using canned, add  
them with the stock. If using tomato paste (yes, you can do it that  
way; Italian cooks invented the stuff as both a preservation method  
_and_ as a convenience food) you can also adjust the thickness to  
some extent.

You can also thicken with a brown roux; only in places like Sicily  
and Naples is this considered a sacrilege, and they'd be using onion  
and garlic, anyway.

Well, again, what you want (in this model) is the equivalent of the  
gravy from a pot roast, with maybe just a bit more tomato than you'd  
normally include, with herbs (fresh if possible, and if not, well,  
not) added at the end to spark up the flavor with their volatile  
oils. Oregano is good for this (so is its cousin, marjoram), but  
thyme and rosemary are, also, and never discount the healing power of  
fresh parsley. It ain't just the funny little garnish you throw away.  
Also, at the end of cooking, adjust seasoning with some fresh black  
pepper. What you're looking to achieve is that perfect balance of  
long-cooked, mellowed, blended flavors, with highlights from fresher  
flavors added at the end.

And I highly recommend adding a little salt. I know you're not a fan  
of too much, but at least some is kind of essential for pastas.

Now, in spite of those lovely pictures on the pasta and pasta sauce  
containers, if you;re moving in the direction of an Italian pasta  
dish and away from pasta with red gravy on top, you really want to  
toss your pasta well with olive oil (or butter, again, if you're  
doing the Northern Thing), a little of the sauce, and maybe some  
grated cheese. You can add more sauce on top, if desired.

Will it be Grandma Martello of Bensonhurst's Sunday red gravy with  
brasciole? No. Does it need to be to be good? Nope.

Adamantius



"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
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Holt, 07/29/04