While Marcella Hazan Still Has More Tomato Sauces 🌞

Last edited Wed Sep 3, 2025, 03:55 PM - Edit history (1)

I've noticed some people, chafing at the bit...

SO

Here are two of MARCELLA'S OTHER SAUCES


Bolognese Meat Sauce

2 HEAPING CUPS,
FOR ABOUT 6 SERVINGS
AND 1½ POUNDS PASTA

Ragù, as the Bolognese call their celebrated meat sauce, is
characterized by mellow, gentle, comfortable flavor that any cook
can achieve by being careful about a few basic points:
• The meat should not be from too lean a cut; the more
marbled it is, the sweeter the ragù will be. The most
desirable cut of beef is the neck portion of the chuck.

• Add salt immediately when sautéing the meat to extract
its juices for the subsequent benefit of the sauce.

• Cook the meat in milk before adding wine and tomatoes
to protect it from the acidic bite of the latter.

• Do not use a demiglace or other concentrates that tip the
balance of flavors toward harshness.

• Use a pot that retains heat. Earthenware is preferred in
Bologna and by most cooks in Emilia-Romagna, but
enameled cast-iron pans or a pot whose heavy bottom is
composed of layers of steel alloys are fully satisfactory.

• Cook, uncovered, at the merest simmer for a long, long
time; no less than 3 hours is necessary, more is better.

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
3 tablespoons butter plus 1 tablespoon for tossing the pasta
½ cup chopped onion
⅔ cup chopped celery
⅔ cup chopped carrot
¾ pound ground beef chuck (see prefatory note above)
SaltBlack pepper, ground fresh from the mill
1 cup whole milk
Whole nutmeg
1 cup dry white wine
1½ cups canned imported Italian plum tomatoes, cut up,
with their juice.
1¼ to 1½ pounds pasta
Freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese at the table

Recommended pasta: There is no more perfect union in all
gastronomy than the marriage of Bolognese ragù with
homemade Bolognese tagliatelle, this page. Ragù is
delicious with tortellini, and irreproachable with
such boxed, dry pasta as rigatoni, conchiglie, or fusilli.
Curiously, considering the popularity of the dish in the United
Kingdom and countries of the Commonwealth, meat sauce
in Bologna is never served over spaghetti.

1. Put the oil, butter, and chopped onion in the pot, and turn the
heat on to medium. Cook and stir the onion until it has become
translucent, then add the chopped celery and carrot. Cook for
about 2 minutes, stirring the vegetables to coat them well.

2. Add the ground beef, a large pinch of salt, and a few grindings of
pepper. Crumble the meat with a fork, stir well, and cook until the
beef has lost its raw, red color.

3. Add the milk and let it simmer gently, stirring frequently, until it has
bubbled away completely. Add a tiny grating—about ⅛ teaspoon—of
nutmeg, and stir.

4. Add the wine, let it simmer until it has evaporated, then add the
tomatoes and stir thoroughly to coat all ingredients well. When the
tomatoes begin to bubble, turn the heat down so that the sauce
cooks at the laziest of simmers, with just an intermittent bubble
breaking through to the surface. Cook, uncovered, for 3 hours or
more, stirring from time to time. While the sauce is cooking, you
are likely to find that it begins to dry out and the fat separates from
the meat. To keep it from sticking, continue the cooking, adding ½
cup of water whenever necessary. At the end, however, no water
at all must be left and the fat must separate from the sauce. Taste
and correct for salt.

5. Toss with cooked drained pasta, adding the tablespoon of butter,
and serve with freshly grated Parmesan on the side.

Ahead-of-time note:

If you cannot watch the sauce for a 3- to 4-hour stretch, you can
turn off the heat whenever you need to leave, and resume cooking
later on, as long as you complete the sauce within the same day.

Once done, you can refrigerate the sauce in a tightly sealed
container for 3 days, or you can freeze it. Before tossing with
pasta, reheat it, letting it simmer for 15 minutes and stirring it
once or twice.

Variation of Ragù with Pork

Pork is an important part of Bologna’s culture, its
economy, and the cuisine, and many cooks add some
pork to make their ragù tastier. Use 1 part ground pork,
preferably from the neck or Boston butt, to 2 parts beef,
and make the meat sauce exactly as described in the
basic recipe above.

From "Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking"
https://www.goodreads.com/work/editions/20777-essentials-of-classic-italian-cooking

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Eggplant and Ricotta Sauce, Sicilian Style

FOR 6 SERVINGS

About 1 to 1½ pounds eggplant
Salt
Vegetable oil
⅓ cup extra virgin olive oil
½ cup onion sliced very thin
1½ teaspoons chopped garlic
2 cups fresh, ripe Italian plum tomatoes, skinned with a peeler,
split lengthwise to pick out the seeds, and cut into narrow strips
Black pepper, ground fresh from the mill
3 tablespoons freshly grated romano cheese
3 tablespoons fresh ricotta
8 to 10 fresh basil leaves
1 to 1½ pounds pasta
Freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese for the table

Recommended pasta I love this sauce with ruote di carro,
“cartwheels,” and it is also good with fusilli or rigatoni. Nor
can you go wrong with plain old spaghetti.

1. Cut off the eggplant’s green spiky cap. Peel the eggplant and cut
it into 1½-inch cubes. Put the cubes into a pasta colander set over
a basin or large bowl, and sprinkle them liberally with salt. Let the
eggplant steep for about 1 hour so that the salt can draw off most
of its bitter juices.

2. Scoop up a few of the eggplant cubes and rinse them in cold
running water. Wrap them in a dry cloth towel, and twist it to
squeeze as much moisture as possible out of them. Spread them
out on another clean, dry towel, and proceed thus until you have
rinsed all the eggplant cubes.

3. Put enough vegetable oil in a large frying pan to come ½ inch
up the sides of the pan, and turn on the heat to medium high.
When the oil is quite hot, slip in as many of the eggplant pieces
at one time as will fit loosely in the pan. If you can’t fit them all
in at one time, fry them in two or more batches. As soon as the
eggplant feels tender when prodded with a fork, transfer it with
a slotted spoon or spatula to a cooling rack or to a platter lined
with paper towels to drain.

4. Pour off the oil and wipe the pan clean with paper towels. Put
in the olive oil and the sliced onion and turn on the heat to medium
high. Sauté the onion until it becomes colored a light gold, then
add the chopped garlic and cook for only a few seconds, stirring
as you cook.

5. Add the strips of tomato, turn up the heat to high, and cook for
8 to 10 minutes, stirring frequently, until the oil floats free from
the tomato.

6. Add the eggplant and a few grindings of pepper, stir, and turn
the heat down to medium. Cook for just a minute or two more,
stirring once or twice. Taste and correct for salt.

7. Toss the cooked and drained pasta with the eggplant sauce,
add the grated romano, the ricotta, and the basil leaves. Toss
again, mixing all ingredients thoroughly into the hot pasta, and
serve at once, with the grated Parmesan on the side.

From "Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking"
https://www.goodreads.com/work/editions/20777-essentials-of-classic-italian-cooking

MMMmmm Marcella's touch!