Maman's Red Sauce with Meat

The Maman dictated this recipe to me as I was about to go off to the store. There were a couple gaps, but we filled them in as we went along and this is the complete version.

This is a very simple version of a ragu, and it can be fancied up with different ground meats (including Italian sausage meat) or even with a piece of braising meat, which you would brown, cook until extremely tender, and then shred back into the sauce.

2 tbsp. butter
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 green pepper, membranes and seeds removed, finely chopped
2-4 cloves garlic
1 lb. ground beef or other meats
1 28 oz. can tomato puree
2 6 oz. cans tomato paste
2 tsp. dried basil leaves (or about 4 tsp. fresh)
2 tsp. dried oregano
1 tsp. freshly ground fennel seeds (optional)
1/2-1 cup red wine

Melt the butter in a large skillet, dutch oven, or stock pot. Saute the onion and green pepper until the pepper is soft, about ten minutes. The pepper should fade to a dimmer green along the way. Add the garlic for the last couple of minutes, just until you can smell it among the cooked onion and pepper smell. You can optionally take out the onion/garlic mixture while you brown the beef.

Add the beef and stir to brown evenly, breaking it up as you go. Drain fat if necessary and then add the tomato puree and paste. Stir in the seasonings and turn to low. Add about 1/2 cup of the wine, with more or water added as you go along to keep the sauce thinned to your taste. You need to stir it often enough -- and add enough liquid -- so that it does not stick to the bottom of the pot, where it will scorch and, if you are so foolish to then stir it up, ruin the entire batch. (Alternately, you can use a crockpot for the simmering, in which case the bottom doesn't scorch, but the edge of the top gradually develops a burned crust that will take you two hours to clean off. Or transfer to the oven at 350° to simmer.)

It will be perfectly edible after a half-hour or so, but it will get better over the next couple of hours. Some people say you should always put the entire sauce away for a day and reheat it for best results. OK, but what did you eat the first day?

If you open a bottle of red wine to use in the dish, you can drink some as you cook, but try to avoid drinking so much that you forget about the sauce and go to bed.

Serve over pasta. Leftovers can be frozen in small containers (one or two cups), or (special bonus recipe) combined with fresh or leftover cooked pasta -- macaroni, penne, and fusilli all work fine -- in a ratio of about 2 cups cooked pasta (1 lb. dried pasta = 4 cups uncooked = 8 cups cooked) to 1 cup sauce and baked in a casserole somewhere between 350° and 400° for about a half-hour. Top with grated mozzarella, and if you really want to push the whole Fake Lasagne thing, put in a layer of ricotta in the middle.

Final note: some find this recipe a little thin on meat. If so, you can remedy by:

• carefully cooking down so there is less liquid;
• using a little more ground beef (say, another third of a pound); or
• adding one uncooked Italian sausage, removed from its skin and crumbled in when you brown the beef.

Simple Chili

I'm not sure whether this recipe appears exactly somewhere else. It's easy to remember, anyway.

The fact that we serve it over pasta is a nod to Cincinnati chili, which I made a version of for a while. But everyone told me to stop and we retreated to this more basic rendition. Except that it still gets served over pasta.

The choice of chili powder and of optional fresh or dried chile gives you a lot of room to adjust the heat. Standard supermarket chili powder is pretty bland, and name brand powders may be hotter and more flavorful. McCormick's makes a Chipotle chili powder that's reasonably fierce for a supermarket product. In some markets you can find powdered chile, which has no other spices (salt, oregano, and cumin are typical). You can even buy some dried chiles, remove membranes and seeds (or not, if you are extremely brave), roast them in the oven or a dry frying pan until they start to crisp, and then use a spice grinder to make your own freshly powdered chile, whose flavor should be very bright. If you do this, add in a little more cumin and other seasonings to taste, and consider additional salt.

2 tbsp. butter
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic
1 lb. ground beef
1 tbsp. chili powder
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 fresh or dried chile (optional)
1 14-1/2 oz. can diced tomatoes
1 14-1/2 oz. can cooked kidney beans
Tabasco or other hot sauce to taste
Condiments: grated cheese, raw onions or shallots, minced jalapeno, etc.

Melt the butter in a large skillet, dutch oven, or stock pot. Saute the onion until translucent. Add the garlic for the last minute or two. If you prefer, you can take out the onion/garlic mixture while you brown the beef.

Add the ground beef, breaking it up with a spoon or spatula while stirring it so that it gets evenly ground. You may add the chili powder and cumin while browning it, but if you're using a very fatty ground beef and will have to drain it after browning, you may want to wait.

Drain the beef if necessary, add the onions and garlic if you removed them, and add the seasonings if you haven't already, including the optional minced fresh or dried chile. Add the diced tomatoes with their juices and adjust to a simmer. Cook for a half-hour or so, though you can leave it there essentially forever, maybe adding a little water or beer from time to time to keep it from getting too thick.

About ten minutes before serving, drain the kidney beans well (I rinse them off in a strainer) and add to the pot. If you prefer a less separate bean flavor, add them sooner. But if the beans sit in the chili for hours, the whole thing will start to melt into an indistinct chili-ish mass. Which is fine if you like that.

Serve over pasta, if you like, with such condiments as appeal to you passed around at table.