Christmas carne

First confession: Christmas was not the first time I made sugo di carne. That came about two months ago, when I had my hands full with work stuff and no time to blog and the camera has been on the fritz anyway so there weren't any photos anyhow.


Second confession: It is foolish of me to think that a holiday week allows me more time to write. Or that I can update a blog at someone else's house, especially when the photos are at home.



Third confession: The camera still stinks.

I'm much more stubborn about sticking to traditional recipes around the winter holidays than at Thanksgiving. I have some tried-and-true favorites, mostly involving eggnog, and look forward to making them every year. In the last few years, I've settled into a Christmas dinner of prime rib and Yorkshire puddings -- originally a compromise between goose (too fatty) and ham (too boring).

But this year, emboldened by the success of Thanksgiving tacos, I suggested the ultrafantastic sugo di carne over homemade pappardelle.  Sugo di carne is amazing. It caught my eye because it has only six ingredients, two of which are a cup of espresso and a bottle of chianti. You cannot go wrong with anything requiring espresso and chianti.

The recipe I use came out of Bon Appetit, I think in 2007. It was in the restaurant recipe section and the magazine got it from Caffe Mingo in Portland, Ore. They called it "penne al sugo di carne" and served it over two pounds of penne. I like it over pappardelle. At any rate, I cannot find the recipe online to link to it, and will do my best to reproduce it here.

The first, most important thing, is to have a large, ovenproof pot. Conveniently, Will gave me a beautiful 7 1/2-quart hard-anodized Dutch oven for Christmas, and while the boys were busy playing with their new toys, I got to play with mine. The first time I made sugo, I made it in a stockpot, which was OK, but too deep to stir properly. The Dutch oven was much, much better.

For this recipe, which serves 12, you will need: 5 lbs. of chuck roast cut into something approximating 2-inch cubes; 6 Tbsp. of butter; 3 red onions, halved and thinly sliced; a cup of wicked strong coffee (espresso preferred, but double-strength coffee works, too); an entire 750-ml bottle of chianti; and a 28-oz can of whole peeled tomatoes, with liquid. You also need 2 pounds of pasta to serve it over, but that comes later.


A couple things of note here: The first time I made this, my heart stopped at the thoughts of "12 servings?" and "an entire bottle of chianti????" so I halved it and it worked out fine. This time around, I went for the whole shebang. Twelve servings is a lot, but I personally think that the leftovers reheated the next day are even better. So it's worth the full batch. Also, well, once you taste it, it's worth the entire bottle of chianti. The full recipe is a little cost-prohibitive, but well, hey, it's the holidays.

Naturally, while I was laboriously cutting the beef into neat 2-inch cubes that Martha Stewart would be proud of, my family called with the unerring instinct families have of calling when you're in the middle of something. Will kindly took over the cubing, and he is sensibly much more relaxed about these things so the cutting was done much faster and now we had 3-inch prisms. Precision is not necessary in this recipe. Besides, I will not disparage the sous chef who also slices onions for me.

Then I melted a tablespoon of butter in the beautiful large ovenproof pot and browned the beef. This must be done in batches, because there is a lot of it.


Next, I melted the remaining 5 tablespoons of butter in the pot and sauteed the onions, stirring frequently, until they were soft. This is also when I preheated the oven to 400 degrees. I never understand why recipes say to preheat first thing, but there's a good half-hour of cooking before anything goes in the oven.


Once the onions were soft -- the recipe says this should be about 5 minutes, I say more like 6 minutes -- I returned the beef and its accumulated juice to the pot. Then I dumped in the tomatoes, chianti and espresso. (Truthfully, I am too lazy to haul out the espresso machine so I use extra-strong coffee. Whatever's handy.) Bring the whole thing to a boil, cover it, and stick it into the oven for two hours.

While the sugo was braising, I made some egg pasta. The recipe I use combines 2 cups of flour and 3 eggs, knead it, let it rest for a half-hour, then run it through the pasta machine. This makes one pound of pasta, so I usually double it. Since I was making it for sugo, I rolled the pasta out to the second-thinnest setting on the machine, and then cut it into long fat ribbons. I should have cut them shorter, but c'est la vie.

After the sugo had been braising for two hours, I took it out of the oven. The next step is to shred the beef with two forks. You could theoretically do it in the pot, but it helps to take it out of the pot with a slotted spoon to make sure you get all the meat. Whatever you do, DON'T FORGET THE POT TEMPERATURE IS 400 DEGREES. The first time I made this, Will burned the heck out of his thumb. It wasn't pretty. Once the beef was shredded, it went back in the pot with all the tasty, super-rich liquid it had been braising in.

Meanwhile, I cooked the pasta. Once that was drained, we served it with sugo. A truly fantastic recipe.

THE VERDICT: Well, since this is the second time I made it, it's a definite keeper. I think, though, that between the richness of the sauce and the price of beef (and a bottle of chianti!) it's not exactly an everyday sort of thing. The leftovers are awesome, too.