- Joined
- Apr 25, 2018
If anybody is at a boeuf bourguignon level of cooking ability, this will have a lot of familiar flavours/techniques, and may be of interest to people seeking to find less tomato-influenced ragus. Thanks to this thread in general for forcing me to write down methods.
Ragù alla genovese/La genovese (Neapolitan beef and onion stew)
Requires: Dutch oven/casserole pot or large pan of at least 4 litre capacity
Cooking time: 12 hours (I'll address how to lower this time but it's very worth it, with practice you can confidently leave this cooking overnight)
1.5 kg yellow onions, finely sliced
1-1.5 kg stewing cut of beef - chuck or brisket if you're fancy, round or topside if you're not
1 med carrot, finely diced
2 stalks celery, finely diced
50-80 g pancetta or guanciale, lardons or fine slices
200 ml dry white wine
Beef or chicken stock, either a few cubes, or a small tub (c. 300 g) of gelatinous stock
Something to provide umami (1 tbsp Worcester sauce, or 1/2 tbsp Asian fish sauce)
Herbs of your choosing (works fine with 1-2 tsp thyme, but you can make a bouquet of rosemary, parsley, sage, or thyme if you like, even basil works in combination with others)
2 bay leaves
Olive oil (no need for any fancy evos)
Salt, pepper
Pasta (rigatoni, ziti, or paccheri - or just any tube you can find, preferably bronze die cut)
Optional, but makes nicer with little effort - instead of the fish sauce, for the umami component:
1-2 tbsp sherry vinegar (red wine vinegar is okay, maybe use less)
1-2 tbsp tomato puree
2-4 tinned anchovy fillets, mashed
2 sun dried tomatoes, diced
Halve your onions and cut them into fine slices. This might take up to 30 mins if you're a rctard like me. The finer you cut the onion strips, the faster they will cook. Finely dice the carrots and celery. Once finished, place your Dutch oven/casserole pot in the oven (if using) and pre-heat to 120 c (250 f).
Add a little olive oil to a large pan (either very wide, or very deep) and gently fry your onions, salting as you do. Close the lid to a crack and gently sweat them for up to half an hour until they reduce in volume somewhat, adding a little water if needed. They should not look particularly appetising (quite noodle-like) at this point, but that is fine.
While the onions cook, cut your pancetta into thin strips or lardons and gently cook on minimal heat in a frying pan (with a little olive oil if the pancetta isn't very fatty) until the fat has rendered. As you do this, prepare your beef by cutting it into large fist-sized pieces (8 maximum for 1.5 kg), dab the beef with a kitchen towel to dry, then season with a rub of large amounts of ground black pepper and kosher salt. Once the pancetta has rendered, remove it, leaving the fat in the pan, and add a little olive oil and brown your meat in batches on medium-low, ensuring you gently caramelise the exterior, not burn. If you want to be traditional you can add some butter at this stage too. Brown each side of the beef until there's no obvious redness (you don't need to do all sides as it will reduce the tenderness of the uncooked centre, just 2-3 sides is fine. Don't crowd the pan, do 2-3 pieces at a time, maximum, with space in between each piece) and place aside.
Take your frying pan which should now be full of cooking fond, pork fat, oil and other nice flavours, raise the heat to med-high, and deglaze with half of your white wine (100 ml), lower the heat to medium and let the alcohol evaporate for 30-60 seconds as needed, then raise the heat to med-high again as you add the stock and umami ingredients and bring them to a gentle simmer. If you're using stock cubes, add a few cups of water to combine everything, if using gelatinous stock, maybe one cup or more if you feel it's needed to create a loose, pourable sauce. Scrape up whatever is on the base of the pan and mix through with a wooden spoon or spatula. If you're seasoning beyond what is already in the vegetables and meat, add salt and pepper to taste.
Once the onions are finished, place aside, add some olive oil to the pan and gently cook your celery and carrot for several minutes with a small amount of salt. Once finished, you are ready to combine everything into your cooking pot of choice. If you're using a cast iron pot, and you're luckier than me and have a gas-fired stovetop, you can cook it there (as is traditional), though I find the oven gives more consistency of temperature for slow-cooking. If using a regular pan on the stovetop that should be fine too, although my temperatures are given for oven cooking - ensure the pan is never bubbling much and it should be fine. Place the beef in a flat layer on the bottom of the pan you're using, then cover with the onions, carrots, celery and pancetta, then pour the stock sauce over the top. Transfer it to the stovetop or oven with a lid cracked open. Leave it cooking for as long as possible, at the lowest heat that is reasonable, checking every hour or two to stir and redistribute the contents around the beef a little (unless the pan is too full, then wait some hours until a little evaporation occurs. If you can be bothered, fish the bouquet and/or bay leaves out half-way through, as they've done their job, and add the second 100 ml of the wine half way, or two thirds of the way through. This seems weird and contrary to many similar recipes, but it is traditional (many recipes suggest adding some after an hour, and the rest nearer the end, but I prefer using some for deglazing). If the onions are staying mid-brown and need to darken further, remove the lid completely. As with any stew, add water if it's getting dry.
Once you're satisfied it's finished, you can serve some immediately, but its flavours develop further if left to cool, then placed in a fridge overnight (as does chilli and other stews). To serve, shred the beef, and serve it with some sauce over a bed of rigatoni, ziti, or paccheri pasta (all are traditional, zitoni especially, but outside of Italy it can be hard to find), with parsley garnish and/or grated hard cheese of your preference. You can also garnish with some evoo if you don't want it to look as dry when served.
These are stolen from Google because I have ogre-like presentation skills, but if you succeed you should be able to produce tasty looking things like these:
Ragù alla genovese/La genovese (Neapolitan beef and onion stew)
Requires: Dutch oven/casserole pot or large pan of at least 4 litre capacity
Cooking time: 12 hours (I'll address how to lower this time but it's very worth it, with practice you can confidently leave this cooking overnight)
1.5 kg yellow onions, finely sliced
1-1.5 kg stewing cut of beef - chuck or brisket if you're fancy, round or topside if you're not
1 med carrot, finely diced
2 stalks celery, finely diced
50-80 g pancetta or guanciale, lardons or fine slices
200 ml dry white wine
Beef or chicken stock, either a few cubes, or a small tub (c. 300 g) of gelatinous stock
Something to provide umami (1 tbsp Worcester sauce, or 1/2 tbsp Asian fish sauce)
Herbs of your choosing (works fine with 1-2 tsp thyme, but you can make a bouquet of rosemary, parsley, sage, or thyme if you like, even basil works in combination with others)
2 bay leaves
Olive oil (no need for any fancy evos)
Salt, pepper
Pasta (rigatoni, ziti, or paccheri - or just any tube you can find, preferably bronze die cut)
Optional, but makes nicer with little effort - instead of the fish sauce, for the umami component:
1-2 tbsp sherry vinegar (red wine vinegar is okay, maybe use less)
1-2 tbsp tomato puree
2-4 tinned anchovy fillets, mashed
2 sun dried tomatoes, diced
Halve your onions and cut them into fine slices. This might take up to 30 mins if you're a rctard like me. The finer you cut the onion strips, the faster they will cook. Finely dice the carrots and celery. Once finished, place your Dutch oven/casserole pot in the oven (if using) and pre-heat to 120 c (250 f).
Add a little olive oil to a large pan (either very wide, or very deep) and gently fry your onions, salting as you do. Close the lid to a crack and gently sweat them for up to half an hour until they reduce in volume somewhat, adding a little water if needed. They should not look particularly appetising (quite noodle-like) at this point, but that is fine.
While the onions cook, cut your pancetta into thin strips or lardons and gently cook on minimal heat in a frying pan (with a little olive oil if the pancetta isn't very fatty) until the fat has rendered. As you do this, prepare your beef by cutting it into large fist-sized pieces (8 maximum for 1.5 kg), dab the beef with a kitchen towel to dry, then season with a rub of large amounts of ground black pepper and kosher salt. Once the pancetta has rendered, remove it, leaving the fat in the pan, and add a little olive oil and brown your meat in batches on medium-low, ensuring you gently caramelise the exterior, not burn. If you want to be traditional you can add some butter at this stage too. Brown each side of the beef until there's no obvious redness (you don't need to do all sides as it will reduce the tenderness of the uncooked centre, just 2-3 sides is fine. Don't crowd the pan, do 2-3 pieces at a time, maximum, with space in between each piece) and place aside.
Take your frying pan which should now be full of cooking fond, pork fat, oil and other nice flavours, raise the heat to med-high, and deglaze with half of your white wine (100 ml), lower the heat to medium and let the alcohol evaporate for 30-60 seconds as needed, then raise the heat to med-high again as you add the stock and umami ingredients and bring them to a gentle simmer. If you're using stock cubes, add a few cups of water to combine everything, if using gelatinous stock, maybe one cup or more if you feel it's needed to create a loose, pourable sauce. Scrape up whatever is on the base of the pan and mix through with a wooden spoon or spatula. If you're seasoning beyond what is already in the vegetables and meat, add salt and pepper to taste.
Once the onions are finished, place aside, add some olive oil to the pan and gently cook your celery and carrot for several minutes with a small amount of salt. Once finished, you are ready to combine everything into your cooking pot of choice. If you're using a cast iron pot, and you're luckier than me and have a gas-fired stovetop, you can cook it there (as is traditional), though I find the oven gives more consistency of temperature for slow-cooking. If using a regular pan on the stovetop that should be fine too, although my temperatures are given for oven cooking - ensure the pan is never bubbling much and it should be fine. Place the beef in a flat layer on the bottom of the pan you're using, then cover with the onions, carrots, celery and pancetta, then pour the stock sauce over the top. Transfer it to the stovetop or oven with a lid cracked open. Leave it cooking for as long as possible, at the lowest heat that is reasonable, checking every hour or two to stir and redistribute the contents around the beef a little (unless the pan is too full, then wait some hours until a little evaporation occurs. If you can be bothered, fish the bouquet and/or bay leaves out half-way through, as they've done their job, and add the second 100 ml of the wine half way, or two thirds of the way through. This seems weird and contrary to many similar recipes, but it is traditional (many recipes suggest adding some after an hour, and the rest nearer the end, but I prefer using some for deglazing). If the onions are staying mid-brown and need to darken further, remove the lid completely. As with any stew, add water if it's getting dry.
Once you're satisfied it's finished, you can serve some immediately, but its flavours develop further if left to cool, then placed in a fridge overnight (as does chilli and other stews). To serve, shred the beef, and serve it with some sauce over a bed of rigatoni, ziti, or paccheri pasta (all are traditional, zitoni especially, but outside of Italy it can be hard to find), with parsley garnish and/or grated hard cheese of your preference. You can also garnish with some evoo if you don't want it to look as dry when served.
I find that most slow-cooked stew recipes suggest too high of a temperature (150 c [300 f] or more), and if you're committed to hitting 10+ hours, 120 c or even 100 is reasonable, and you can always turn the heat up a little towards the end. If your oven fluctuates too much, perhaps bump up the base heat by 10 or 20 degrees or so. If you want to speed up the cook you can do in a couple of ways - just raise the temperature to those more often recommended numbers, and depending on the cut you might be able to squeeze the beef's cook time down to 4 hours, although it won't be perfect, and for tougher cuts like round/topside it's not recommended. Brisket would be ideal for this, as unlike chuck, it doesn't need lots of time to contribute fat to the sauce. You can also remove the beef once finished (you should be able to push a chopstick through without much resistance if it's done) and then turn the temperature up higher to reduce the onion sauce, but really you do benefit from a long cook-time in order to fully break down the onions into a rich, dark, gelatinous gravy. If you are reducing the onions separately, you can add the sherry vinegar during that stage instead of at the start. The umami ingredient fuckery is to try to balance the intense sweetness of the onions when fully cooked. Some recipes try to cheat this by including the same weight of onions as beef, but if you're going to make a famously onion-heavy dish, it is best to go full rctard imo, and cram as many as will fit in your pan. Don't be scared to press down on what is in the pan to fit even more in at the start. You can also use a mixture of pancetta and Salame Napoli (spiced salami), although despite the very slight heat helping to balance the dish even further, this may be an over-reverential step when you could just add a little more heat from any other source (a single small deseeded chilli pepper, a tiny pinch of chilli powder, splash of chilli oil, etc). If you find you have too much sauce by the end, it makes a wonderful addition to pasta all by itself, or as a topping to baked potatoes, a gravy for roast dinner, or anything you can think of. Like all stews, it freezes well. You can cut the carrots larger if you want the visual effect, or like boeuf bourguignon can cook the stew with whole carrots which are then discarded and replaced with fresher ones cut into the desired final shape towards the end of the cooking process, to give them more texture.
These are stolen from Google because I have ogre-like presentation skills, but if you succeed you should be able to produce tasty looking things like these:
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To be honest mandolines have always terrified me but the cut-proof glove you mention sounds very intriguing - how is it like to use them, are they easy to clean/does it feel like wearing something intended for winter sports, or is there some dexterity to them? (I guess you hardly need dexterity for swiping, but it's useful to know.)
