Anyone who takes even the briefest glance at our body of work on this blog cannot fail to notice that we have a definite proclivity towards the porcine, and so it is that this top five is perhaps the most hotly contested monthly selection thus far.

The pig is, in our humble opinion, the greatest animal on earth, and picking only five products made from its wondrous bounty was a difficult thing. Beatific smiles spread across our faces as we considered our porky love and suggested different products and cuts of the beast, but, after much debate, a surprising consensus form between us, with only two points of disagreement.

Let us know what your favorite pork products are and win a package of pork-related kitchen goodies.

Amy & Jonny’s Top Five Pork Products:
1. guanciale (cured pig’s jowls) - Jonny: switch out for Spanish cured lomo
2. chorizo (pimenton flavored cured sausage)
3. jamon iberico (special Spanish ham)
4. chicharrones (fried pork rinds)
5. scrapple (a Philadelphia tradition made with lots of bits of pig and cornmeal) - Jonny: switch out for unsmoked English back bacon rashers

Ok, so this is just a quick entry for a nice, summer Friday (where I’d rather be outside than blogging!) for a quick, nice summer meal. It was one of those ‘fridge meals’ where we had to use up some veggies and is not super different from some of the other ‘fridge meals’ (often pasta) we’ve made before. But, what made this meal somewhat different from any other old pasta recipe was that we used some bresaola we bought recently that was beginning to grow zits and needed to be eaten. We cut it up and sauteed it a bit, kind of like what one may do with pancetta or bacon. Because bresaola has a very specific, salty taste, it really made this dish unique. If you can find a specialty store that carries this air-dried, salted beef from Lombardy (Italy), I would highly recommend trying it. You can make a simple bresaola, arugula and parmagiano salad or put the salad on a pizza like we did. Or you can use it in pasta like the recipe you will read below. We topped it with a poached egg because, well, we wanted to. As I’ve said before, mixing warm yolk into pasta is one of life’s greatest things!

PASTA (GEMELLI) WITH BRESAOLA, ROASTED VEGGIES AND ROASTED GARLIC SAUCE

Ingredients:

• Roasted Veggies (whatever you have on hand – we used broccoli and broccoli stems, big chunks of zucchini and¸sweet vidalia onion, but you can get creative)
• some garlic powder
• 1 box of gemilli or any other type of pasta you’d like
• 1/2 head of roasted garlic
• olive oil
• 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter
• parmigiano reggiano
• poached egg (one per dish)
• chopped chives
• salt and pepper
• optional: pepperoncino

What to do:

1. Heat your oven up to 425 degrees. Cut the top 1/4 inch off your half of head of garlic and sprinkle with a bit of olive oil. Wrap in tin foil and toss in the oven for about 25 minutes along with the veggies in step #2.
2. Toss your thickly-cut veggies with olive oil and sprinkle each side with some salt and a bit of garlic powder. Roast until both sides are browned – about 20-25 minutes and make sure to turn over the veggies halfway.
3. While veggies and garlic are cooking, boil water for your pasta. When veggies and garlic are finished roasting, take out of the oven and allow to cool just a bit. If some of your veggies are too big, when they cool you can cut them into more bite-size pieces. While veggies cool, cook your pasta until al dente.
4. Cut up your bresaola into small pieces with a knife or scissors.
5. When veggies are cooled and cut, add to a separate pan along with two tablespoons of olive oil and the bresaola bits and cook all on medium-low for a few minutes.
6. Using a slotted spoon, add your pasta directly into the pan with the veggies and olive oil and add 2 tablespoons of the pasta water. Stir.
7. Make a little ‘well’ in the middle of the pasta and squeeze your roasted garlic paste directly in and, using a wooden spoon, mash into the olive oil in the bottom of the pan and stir all into the pasta. Turn heat down to low.
8. (This step is optional – you can also fry an egg if poaching seems daunting to you!) Meanwhile, using the same water used for your pasta, bring to a boil and poach your egg.
9. Add the tablespoons of butter to the pasta – stir until melted in. Add your pepperoncino (optional), chives, salt and pepper to taste and a handful of parmigiano reggiano. Stir again!
10. Time to plate – scoop out your pasta into a bowl and make sure there are plenty of veggies and bresaola in each bowl. Top with the poached egg, some extra chives and parmigiano and you’re good to go!

Check some other posts you may enjoy:

• TAGLIATELLE WITH AUTHENTIC RAGU DI FEGATO DI POLLO (Long Pasta w/ Ragu of Chicken Livers, Milk and White Wine)
• TRUFFLED BUTTER
• POLLO EN PEPITORIA “KINDA” (HAZELNUT CRUSTED CHICKEN IN A FINO SHERRY, SAFFRON AND HAZELNUT SAUCE)
• A Bloody Delicious Time in England – A Recap
• Free Lunch for Inner-City Kids – If It’s Free Does It Have To Be Crap?
• Good Eats – Man TV?

Alessandra Spisni’s Ragu w/ Red Wine (w/ Homemade Garganelli)

We spent two separate short trips to Bologna in the Emilia Romagna region of Northern Italy – the first in late 2006 and the second last summer (2007). Within the first few minutes of arriving in the city, I instantly fell in love. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love Rome, but I fell in deep, passionate love with Bologna. Besides being one of the most influential culinary cities in Italy (and the world), it is also beautiful, rich in culture and very livable – plus, they know how awesome they are without having ego. To make us fall in love even harder, my husband’s favorite author, Umberto Eco, is a professor of semiotics at University of Bologna. And even though we recently received a $322 ticket from the City of Bologna for supposedly driving in a ‘locals only’ zone last July (oh, we’re fighting this one HARD), I still have much love for the place.

There are probably two things that come to mind when one thinks about Bologna, whether or not you have visited it – Pasta Bolognese (or Ragu alla Bolognese) and bologna (sing it with me if you know it, my bologna has a first name it’s O-S-C-A-R), sometimes written “baloney” in American-speak (which gives me a shiver up and down my spine). We could write a whole post (which, come to think about it would be a good idea… I’ll add it to the list) on REAL, AUTHENTIC bologna, called mortadella, not the crap that’s sold with the O-S-C-A-R/ M-E-Y-E-R label on it. But we’ll save that lesson for another day. This post is going to be an ode to the hearty, fabulous and traditional sauce – the Ragu alla Bolognese.

Ragu w/ Chicken Livers and Milk (with Homemade Tagliatelle)

Many people may mistake a Ragu alla Bolognese sauce for a ‘meat sauce’ which is right to a certain extent. But most Bolognese people would die if they heard it described as just a meat sauce because it is so much more to them. The problem is, like many other authentic Italian dishes, Pasta con Ragu alla Bolognese has been reinvented into an over simplified meal (read: finding faster, cheaper and grosser ways to cook it) by other countries (ie: “Spag Bol” in England or “Ragu – It’s IN There!” jarred American red sauces) and has also become a sort of tourist-trap meal. I remember even while in Spain seeing Spaghetti Bolognese on a tourist menu – in SPAIN. You know what I’m talking about – those gross tourist restaurants that have the large sign in the front begging you to come eat there with pictures of each menu item they serve. People, if you don’t know how to translate Spaghetti Bolognese into English and you need a picture to show you what it is, PLEASE, do yourself a favor, keep walking! Not to mention that the picture usually resembles a bit of overcooked noodles with a can of red dog food plopped on top. Narsty.

What is important for you, dear-readers-on-the-search-for-the-authentic-and-traditional, to know and understand is if you are ever in Bologna/Northern Italy and they try to serve you Spaghetti alla Bolognese do not, I repeat, do not order it and immediately leave that restaurant. The Bolognese would never pair their traditional ragu with spaghetti since it is not a local type of pasta – it is local to the south, specifically Napoli. Tagliatelle would be a very traditional pairing, even tortellini, two types of egg pasta created in Bologna. Although I jest, you can choose to eat Bolognese with Spaghetti in Bologna if you so choose, I’m just trying to help you ’spot the tourist trap’. It’s very important when traveling (wink, wink).

Today we’re going to talk about making the real, the traditional and the authentic Ragu alla Bolognese sauce. It’s a regional specialty that has many different ways to make it depending on family recipes and methods. All the recipes include soffritto (carrots, onion and celery), meat and wine. Some include a few other ingredients including some sort of cured meat like pancetta and others add sausage. Other recipes are a bit bolder and more complicated, adding milk or cream (a source of controversy with the Bolognese), some add nutmeg and white wine, while others use a mixture of meats. But, the one thing all Ragu recipes have in common is that they are all to be made with love and patience because it should always simmer away for hours for the flavors to build. This ain’t no 30-minute meal.

Back when the sauce was created, old cuts of beef were used which were very tough – long simmering was necessary and was known to create flavor. Oh, and you know what else is often missing from a traditional Bolognese sauce? TOMATO. Yup, that’s right folks, I know you don’t want to believe it but it’s true. At best, most authentic Ragu alla Bolognese recipes will only have a bit of tomato paste or some whole, peeled tomatoes. But, then again, that may depend on which Bolognese ‘mama’ you talk to. As Anna Nonni, owner of a restaurant outside of Bologna, says in the latest issue of Saveur, “[Ask] ten women, you’ll get ten different recipes, all of them traditional.” I like the idea that each recipe has been passed down through the years by family members. In fact, this is still a hotly debated issue in the area – will the real Ragu please stand up, please stand up?

On a lazy Saturday, Jonny and I were inspired by the latest issue of the wonderful Saveur (#110) magazine to create two different types of Ragu alla Bolognese. That issue of Saveur contained six different recipes for ragu. We had the time to spare and we were curious to do side-by-side comparisons of two very different, but traditional recipes. I chose the most simple recipe (Alessandra Spisni’s Ragu alla Bolognese) and a more complicated and richer recipe containing chicken livers and milk (Ragu Enriched with Chicken Livers). If we had time and stovetop space to cook all six, we would’ve! Bottom line, both sauces were absolutely, ridiculously delicious and I would recommend anyone who wants to impress family and friends to choose to make either. There was something so unbelievably satisfying about the Spisni’s Ragu. It was so simple to make, I felt like I barely cooked. I just let the gas stove do the work. To me, it was the quintessential Italian meal – simple and hearty with flavors coming together with time to blend perfectly. It tasted like the Bolognese I ate in Bologna. Spisni’s Ragu is almost exactly the same as the Ragu recipe that is in the “La Cucina Bolognese della Tradizione” (Traditional Bolognese Cooking) cookbook I bought at the famous Tamburini food store (Via Caprarie 1, Bologna, TEL: 051234726), so I feel like I tested three Ragu recipes!

On the other hand, the Ragu Enriched with Chicken Livers recipe blew my socks off, probably because it had those other elements of flavor that just made it stand apart from the Spisni’s Ragu. For instance, this recipe used milk, cloves, nutmeg and white wine. There were also more steps involved than Spisni’s (ie: making a tomato-paste broth and simmering milk with cloves) and the use of three types of meat, pork, beef and chicken livers, was slightly flavor-changing. I’ve always been a big fan of cloves and nutmeg in cooking and these spices, combined with the use of milk, created a beautiful ragu.

Because of the hotly debated topic of ‘what is authentic ragu’ in Bologna, in 1982, the Bologna chapter of the Accademia Italiana della Cucina researched and investigated what should be the official recipe of Ragu. This academic society whose aim is to preserve Italian food and techniques created the “Classic Ragu alla Bolognese”. We didn’t choose to test this one because it was more similar to the Ragu with Chicken Livers recipe and we wanted to distinct and different flavors to compare. But check out the recipe here.

I am copying these recipes virtually word for word from Saveur magazine because I followed this recipe word for word (except I added just a touch more tomato paste in both). I really hope you will trade in your store-bought meat sauce for one of these recipes. At least, I hope you give a big F-You to people like Sandra Lee and Rachel Ray by screwing the ’semi-homemade’ or ‘30-minute meal’ rule and taking the time to try these long-simmering sauces just once. I promise, you won’t be disappointed. Better yet, make a huge batch, then ‘Rachel Ray’ your little heart out by grabbing some leftovers from the freezer for a delicious and authentic 30-minute meal! If you can’t go to Bologna, bring Bologna to you!

ALESSANDRA SPISNI’S RAGU ALLA BOLOGNESE (makes alot – about 8 cups)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup lard (butter works)
• 3 small yellow onions, finely chopped
• 2 medium carrots, finely chopped
• 2 ribs of celery, finely chopped
• 2 lbs. ground beef chuck
• 1/2 cup dry red wine
• 2 3/4 cups canned tomato puree
• water
• Salt and fresh ground pepper

What to do:

1. Heat lard in heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat. Add onions, carrots and celery and cook, stirring frequently, until vegetables are somewhat softened, about 8 minutes.
2. Raise heat to medium-high, add beef, and cook, stirring constantly, until meat is broken up and just cooked through, 6-8 minutes. Add the wine and cook, stirring occasionally until evaporated, about 4 minutes.
3. Stir in tomato puree and 1 1/2 cups water and bring to a boil over high heat.
4. Reduce the heat to low and simmer, partially covered, stirring occasionally until the sauce is thick – about 2 to 2 1/2 hours. Season with salt and pepper and serve over pasta.

RAGU DI FEGATO DI POLLO (Ragu with Chicken Livers) – makes 4 cups – double recipe to match one above

Ingredients:

• 4 cups beef broth
• 2 tbsp. tomato paste (I added a bit more, maybe one more tablespoon)
• 1 cup milk
• 3 whole cloves
• 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tbsp. unsalted butter
• 1 2-oz. piece of pancetta, finely chopped (I went to my deli and asked for a 2 inch round that I cut up)
• 2 medium carrots, finely chopped
• 2 ribs celery, finely chopped
• 1 medium size yellow onion, finely chopped
• 3/4 lb. ground beef chuck
• 1/4 lb. ground pork shoulder (I used regular ground pork)
• 1 cup dry white wine
• 1/8 tsp. freshly ground nutmeg
• 2 chicken livers (about 2 oz.)

What to do:

1. In a small saucepan, bring broth to a simmer over medium heat. Put tomato paste into a small bowl and pour in 1 cup broth; stir to dissolve. Set tomato-infused broth aside (Keep remaining broth hot.)
2. In another saucepan, bring milk to a simmer over medium heat. Add cloves, remove from heat and let steep, covered, for one hour.
3. Meanwhile, heat olive oil and butter in a large heavy-bottomed pot over medium-low heat. Add pancetta and cook until fat has rendered, stirring occasionally. Add carrots, celery and onions and cook, stirring occasionally until soft and caramelized (about 30 minutes). Stir in beef and pork, cook, breaking meat apart with wooden spoon, until browned. Season with salt and pepper. Increase heat to medium-high and add wine and cook until wine is evaporated.
4. Lower heat to mediu, stir in nutmeg, and reserved tomato broth and cook, stirring occasionally until liquid is absorbed, about 5 minutes.
5. Lower heat to medium, low and add 1/2 cup reserved hot broth and cook until liquid is absorbed, stirring occasionally. Repeat 1/2 cup at a time until all broth has been used (kind of like risotto) – this can take some time. ***NOTE: Although this may seem very time consuming, don’t take it too seriously. You can walk away and do other things during this ‘liquid absorbing’ part. Don’t go stir crazy – this does not have to be perfect!
6. Add chicken livers to the sauce and cook for 8 minutes until soft. Using a fork, mash livers on the side of the pot (or remove and do it on a plate) with a tablespoon into the sauce. Add the milk and simmer until thick and velvety – another 15 to 20 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and serve with pasta.

Check out some other posts you may enjoy:

• LIDIA’S LAMB CHOPS (Lamb Chops with A Mustard Anchovy Sauce)
• GNOCCHI DI PATATE WITH A BROWN BUTTER, SAGE, BREADCRUMB SAUCE
• ORECCHIETTE WITH SAUSAGE AND KALE
• ITALIAN-STYLE SLOW ROASTED PORK SHOULDER WITH SALSA VERDE
• LIVORNESE FISH STEW
• PAPPA AL POMODORO (Tuscan Tomato and Bread Soup)
• SWEET ANISE-FLAVORED SALMON IN A POUCH (SALMON EN PAPILLOTE)
• SPATCHCOCK CHICKEN (A TUTORIAL)

I’ve just died and gone to heaven. I just cooked with guanciale (cured pigs jowels/cheeks). I just ate guanciale while sitting back on my couch in my crowded, rent-is-just-too-damn-high apartment watching TV. If only every night could be like this.

If you read our blog (or know us personally) you will know how important Italy is in our lives. We were engaged in Rome and married in Tuscany. Because of our wedding, we ended up spending a total of almost 6 weeks all over Italy starting with our engagement in May, 2006 until our wedding in June, 2007. It has a very big place in our hearts and our stomachs! I think we each gained nine or ten pounds during our three week wedding/honeymoon this past summer. And I do not care that I probably still have not lost all of it. We ate two large meals a day and always had wine with our lunch, there ain’t any amount of walking that’s gonna melt those calories away.

One of our favorite places to eat while in Rome is right across the river from our favorite Roman neighborhood to stay in, Trastevere. We take the short walk across the Tiber to the Jewish Ghetto and up the building stairs to Al Pompiere. Al Pompiere is frequented by locals as well as smart tourists (you should not see any sneakers, oversized t-shirts or fanny/bum bag-wearing toolbags). Their food is very tradional Jewish-Roman cuisine. They have excellent Fried Artichokes and we’ve tasted about 6 of their pastas – all excellent. But, this is where we first tried Bucatini Al’amatriciana – a classic pasta dish from Lazio. It is named after a small town called Amatrice. Supposedly there are different ways to prepare this dish. In Amatrice they do not use onions, but in other areas you will taste them in the dish. Purists do not add garlic and purists would also only use guanciale. I love garlic and guanciale is often difficult to find in the States, so you can choose to be a purist or not. I’ve read others make this dish here in America with pancetta (next best thing to guanciale) or bacon (I guess it’s the second best thing to guanciale). Personally, after eating this dish in Italy many times and now creating it myself with guanciale, I can not imagine substituting it with anything else. I think I’m officially an Al’amatriciana snob, but maybe that’s because the last 4 times I’ve eaten this dish has been with guanciale.

After our honeymoon, I decided to (sneakily) smuggle a 3/4 pound slab of guanciale in my suitcase back to the US. At the airport, we had on our best “no, we don’t have any meat products in our possession” faces while we got through customs. But that was 6 months ago. The beautiful pig cheek slab has sat in our freezer in shrinkwrapped plastic waiting until the day was right to bring smiles to our faces and our guts. We couldn’t resist any longer – we finally ripped it open and created a pretty bang-on variation of the dish we ate many times in Italy. I know hands – down it was the guanciale. GOD BLESS PIGS JOWLS!

But, readers, PLEASE don’t think this dish wouldn’t be absolutely delicious without guanciale and with pancetta. It just may not have that specific rich, porky flavor that the pig cheeks have. We have about 1/2 of our slab left, so after one more meal 1/2 it will sadly be gone forever. Until my local butcher starts selling it, I will too be making this with pancetta.

PERCIATELLI (OR SPAGHETTI/BUCATINI) AL’AMATRICIANA

Ingredients

• 1/2 pound cured pigs cheeks (guanciale) or pancetta, thinly sliced
• 2 onions very thinly sliced (use a mandolin if available)
• 2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
• 1/2 cup Pecorino Romano cheese
• 2 1/2 cups Amy’s Tomato Sauce (see below)
• 1 pound perciatelli, bucatini or spaghetti

What to do:

1. Reheat your Tomato Sauce, keep warmed on low.
2. Take your sliced guanciale or pancetta and cook on both sides on medium to medium-low. You want to just render some of the fat, not completely crisp up. After a few minutes, take the strips out and let drain on a paper towel. DO NOT THROW OUT ALL THE RENDERED FAT! Put most in separate bowl, keeping about 1-2 tablespoons in the pan.
3. On medium-low heat, throw in your thinly sliced onions and slow cook these in the rendered guanciale/pancetta fat. This process could take up to 25-30minutes to sweat them down, but it’s WORTH it. The sweetness of the onions when cooked this way can not be duplicated without slow cooking them. You want to make sure you keep stirring them every once in awhile. Add more rendered pork fat if the onions look like they need it.
4. Boil water for your pasta. Add your pasta to cook.
5. Meanwhile, when guanciale/pancetta is cool enough to handle, cut into chunks about 1 inch long by 1/2 inch wide pieces.
6. Add the garlic to the pan and then the guanciale/pancetta pieces. Allow to cook along with the onions for 3 minutes. Continue to stir.
7. Add 1 1/2 cup of pasta sauce to the pan. Stir the sauce.
8. Drain pasta, reserving a few tablespoons of the pasta water. Add the pasta to the pan along with the pasta water. Toss with the sauce. Add more tomato sauce if necessary — remember never to oversauce your pasta!
9. Allow to cook in the pan on low for a minute and then add pecorino. Toss and serve! Sprinkle some parsley on top for some green.

AMY’S TOMATO SAUCE (makes 3 1/2 cups):

• 1 28-oz. can of crushed tomatoes (san marzano preferred)
• 1 onion, diced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced and 2 cloves garlic, smashed w/ back of a knife
• olive oil
• salt
• 4-5 basil leaves, torn
• peperoncino (optional)

What to do:

1. Saute your onions in olive oil until slightly soft (4 minutes).
2. Add your minced garlic and saute for another minute or so.
3. Add the can of crushed tomatoes and stir. Add one teaspoon of olive oil, a pinch of salt and the crushed garlic allow to simmer for 30-40 minutes. The flavors will reduce together. Add peperoncino if you want a spicier sauce. Finish sauce with a little bit of olive oil and stir in torn basil leaves.