Una Genovese alla Bologna
Coarsely grind two pounds of well-marbled boneless pork ribs or have your butcher grind it for you. Don't buy supermarket ground pork. If you have no other alternative, buy the pork ribs and chop the meat coarsely by hand. If you had a coarse textured italian style pork sausage that you trusted, you could empty it from its casings to use in this dish.
Mix the following seasonings with the ground pork and brown over medium high heat in a cast iron sauce pan:
1 Tablespoon Salt
1/4 teaspoon Nutmeg
1 teaspoon Fennel Seed (to taste)
2 - 4 small Red Chili Peppers (to taste - nice but not essential)
Sautee the following mirepoix of vegetables in a separate large sauce pan:
1/2 cup finely chopped Carrot
1/2 cup finely chopped Celery
2 large sweet onions chopped fine
Caramelize 2 cups of coarsely chopped whole plum tomatoes (skinned and squeezed of juices and, if you wish, seeded) in a separate pan.
Combine with the mirepoix of vegetables in the large sauce pan the browned meat and the caramelized tomatoes and 2 cups of stock made with chicken, eggplant and green pepper
Add 2-4 tablespoons of Vietnamese (good quality - all anchovy) fish sauce (4-6 finely-chopped anchovies - salt preserved (in Italy you would ask for "acciughe sotto sale") or anchovies in oil in a glass container can be substituted for the fish sauce but it's not as good) Vietnamese fish sauce is available in major US metropolitan areas and all over Paris (as well as in Southeast Asia). Yes, this is gilding the lily, but it tastes very, very good.
Add 1-2 tablespoons of salted butter (the butter is a Bolognese element but is actually intended as a counterpoint to the Fish Sauce or Anchovies - although more butter would not hurt this sauce)
Add 1/2 cup white vermouth or very dry white wine, possibly spicy or mineral in character
Add 2 tablespoons Pernod or other similar anise-flavored alcoholic beverage
Simmer 30 - 60 minutes depending on desired outcome. It's chunkier with somewhat less cooking and becomes more of an amalgamated sauce with more cooking. The flavors do meld and form a higher order of taste if cooked for the longer time.
Mix farfalle (bowtie) pasta into the sauce and put the pan on the table
Accompany with grated cheese
The Napolitani cook an onion-based sauce with beef (called "una genovese") and usually without butter or anchovy. This recipe substitutes the more common element of a Bolognese ragu, namely, pork
9/9/2004