atsa ragu to you

A true ragu is a big hunk of meat seared and then simmered slowly in tomato sauce (usually on a rack, so it doesn't scorch on the bottom). When the meat reaches the stage of being tender but not yet falling apart, it's fished out, sliced, and served with pasta. The meat-infused sauce is then poured by each diner from a gravy boat. It takes a long time, and you have to hover over the pot a bit to make sure the meat doesn't cook past the point it can be sliced.

For special occasions, a ragu might be made with mixed meats. If you peek in the freezer of a Sicilian cook, there's often a bag of leftovers, that one extra pork chop or a marrow bone, hoarded away for just this purpose. I've never seen sea food mixed with meats or poultry in Italian cooking, but just about everything else can go into a ragu.

For my husband, it's not a special occasion ragu without some lamb. The bad news is that lamb is expensive. The good news is that the flavor really travels--other meats pick up the flavor readily. But there's a trick to this, and it works well if your life doesn't allow you to hover over the pot all day.

The trick is to control the fat. The traveling lamb flavor is in the fat, so you don't want to give it much competition. You'll need a frying pan, a simmering pot, and a crock pot.

The hunks of meat will go in the crock pot. If you actually read the instructions (does anyone but me?) they say to carefully trim all the fat off meat going into your slow cooker. It's important! The steam at the top of the slow cooker can become very hot and give oil floating on top a very unpleasant taste. When you trim the hunk of lamb, cut the fat and bone out but save them both. Discard the fat trimmed from other meats. I find it works well to have a layer of sliced raw onions on the bottom, then the meat, then sprinkle with dried herbs, and then lightly fried garlic on top. Lid on, and let it cook.

Meanwhile, mix up a plain tomato sauce in the simmering pot. I like to use tomato paste and add liquid to the desired consistency, because it's cheaper and gives me complete control over the saltiness. Because most meat and poultry has been brined before you buy it, and canned tomatoes are very salty (even the organic ones) a ragu is easily too salty. Too much salt will ruin your palate, make your Romano cheese seems bland (if you use it), and it's not good for you.

Then make plain meatballs and fry them in a non-stick frying pan. Any ground meat will do; the meatballs in the picture are ground beef mixed with an onion grated on a cheese grater and a little oregano. The whole point is for the meat to taste like meat, so don't fuss with eggs, bread crumbs, etc. Discard the grease from the pan. For once, you're not after the fond, which won't be very good because of the grated onions anyway, because they scorch very easily.

Put the meatballs, lamb bone and fat, and one bay leaf into the tomato sauce. Simmer gently a while, then let it rest. That's the picture of the sauce, with the bay leaf and a lamb bone poking out for the photo. The meatballs (no matter what kind) will pick up a lot of the lamb flavor.

When the meat in the slow cooker is almost as tender as you'd like it to be, scoop it out and add the meat (but not the pot liquid) to the tomato sauce. Simmer a while longer, and make your pasta. If all goes well, you'll have tender meat that still has distinctly different tastes, but meatballs and sauce that taste like lamb. Discard the bay leaf and lamb bone, slice the meat, and you're ready to arrange it on a platter.

If you've eaten with an Italian family at a special occasion, you understand completely why there's no photo of the final platter.

Notes:
In the slow cooker photo I didn't sear the meat first, as with smaller pieces it doesn't make much difference. Life is short.

Doesn't it need more spice? No. This is better with a light touch on the spices: oregano and basil are shown. Some folks would put rosemary in since the lamb dominates, but I don't like rosemary with beef at all, and if you use sausage it can clash badly.

Why not just put it all in a slow cooker? You can't control the fat, and hence the flavor that way. And tomato sauce is usually ruined in a slow cooker. Again, the steam between the liquid and the lid gets very hot and it will scorch the tomato sugars at the top, giving your sauce a bitter taste. Also the bones of any baby animal such as lamb are too soft for a slow cooker anyway: it's possible for a soft bone to begin dissolving in a crock pot and that's a catastrophe.