Ragù Napoletano: The Heart of Traditional Neapolitan Cuisine
Illustration by Alessia Phillips
“Tradition demands that towards the end of the 5 hours, when the sauce is basically ready, there should always be someone nonchalantly wandering around the kitchen so that they can dip a piece of bread into the sauce and taste it – normally making a mess, sauce dripping down their chin. Tradition also demands that the cook should pretend to be annoyed about the whole affair, when they are actually quite pleased, because it is sign of great appreciation.”
It is common knowledge that delicious, hearty food lies at the heart of Italian culture. Half of my family is Neapolitan. On days of celebration, our meals will go on for five hours, during which at least four courses featuring several sides and main dishes will be passed around the dining table. Food provides the stage upon which endless laughter, discussion, and even disputes play out. It sets the pace for our social events and dictates what room of the house we should be in. When my family is all together, food is often the main topic of discussion: who should cook what, who is craving what, which pizzeria is open. I feel lucky to have grown up surrounded by people who delight in food in this way.
This specific dish, Ragù, is traditionally a Sunday lunch specialty. We don’t necessarily observe this unspoken rule, as we don’t often have the opportunity to spend Sunday together – scattered around the country and, in my case, across the continent as we normally are. Instead, my aunt will often make ragù for our first meal together when we reunite. Perhaps this is why it feels like such a powerfully warm and comforting dish, and why it was the first recipe that came to mind when I tried to think of what I wanted to share with you.
Ragù is a rich, luxurious sauce, with perfectly-sized morsels of meat that have been bubbling in the velvety tomato passata for so long that it melts in your mouth. This thick sauce coats ziti pasta and is showered in grated parmesan. Preparation normally begins in the morning, in order for the dish to be enjoyed as a late lunch. The recipe for a traditional dish such as this one is normally taught orally or demonstrated to the younger cooks in the family by those more experienced. My aunt learned from watching her grandma and her friends prepare it, and she has very kindly written this recipe down for me to share with you. Each family makes their own version with different meats, proportions, and cooking times, so I am sharing an heirloom with you today. The key to a delicious Ragù is using high quality tomato passata, paste, and meat.
Recipe for Ragù Napoletano
Serves 12 people
Ingredients:
2-3 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil
2 large red onions (around 400g). We use “tropea” onions from Calabria, as their sweetness counteracts the acidity of the tomato – but these are not widely available outside of Italy, so red onions will do.
800g Beef muscle
400g Pork shin
4 “locena” Pork or veal chop roulades – Tied with string, containing garlic, parsley, and parmesan. In Naples you would order these from your butcher or make them from scratch.
400g Pork ribs – These should have a lot of fat on the meat.
2l Tomato passata
80g Tomato paste
1.2kg Ziti – Traditionally, these are broken in half to create the perfect vessel for the sauce, but any round, hollow pasta, such as rigatoni, will do.
Parmesan
Salt to taste
Instructions:
Heat up the olive oil in a large, deep pot on medium heat.
Add all of the meats. Lower the heat a little, and let all of the different pieces of meat brown slowly. This should take some time.
Stir in the onion, diced, until it softens.
When the juices produced by the meat and onion mixture has almost completely dried out, add the passata and tomato paste, and salt to taste.
At this point, let the ragù cook for at least 5 hours on low heat – it should change colour from red to dark brown.
Bring at least 3 litres of well-salted water to a boil, add pasta until it is al dente – it should retain some bite and not feel completely mushy. Strain.
Take the sauce from the pot with a ladle, so as to avoid mixing in the larger pieces of meat. Make sure to catch some smaller piece of meat, though, as they are a delicious addition to the sauce. Add the sauce to the pasta.
Grate loads of parmesan on top.
The meat is normally eaten alongside some crusty Neapolitan bread later on in the day, once people have recovered from this hearty, delectable meal.
My aunt says: “Tradition demands that towards the end of the 5 hours, when the sauce is basically ready, there should always be someone nonchalantly wandering around the kitchen so that they can dip a piece of bread into the sauce and taste it – normally making a mess, sauce dripping down their chin. Tradition also demands that the cook should pretend to be annoyed about the whole affair, when they are actually quite pleased, because it is sign of great appreciation.”
This recipe reflects the incredibly rich yet astoundingly simple nature of traditional Italian cuisine: a handful of high-quality ingredients (preferably sourced from a trusted butcher or greengrocer), a free afternoon to allow the pot to bubble away, and finally, love – love that makes us all patiently wait for the sauce to be ready, as the house fills with a mouth-watering smell of browned meat and tomato.
Alessia Phillips is obtaining an MSc in Pyschoanalytic Developmental Pyschology at UCL and the Anna Freud Centre for Children and Families.