Fresh tomato sauce. Sugo fresco di pomodoro.

Fresh tomato sauce. Sugo fresco di pomodoro.
By Marcella Hazan (April 15, 1924 – September 29, 2013) .

Ruth Rogers (Ruth Rogers, 64, is a chef and co-founder of the River Café restaurant in London.):
'People are always putting yet another ingredient into pasta dishes but for me, and for most Italians, the simplest tomato pasta sauce is always the best.
My husband is Italian and that's what he loves the most.
When we entertain, which isn't very often, people always expect a fancy meal but I often make this dish because it's the nicest dish there is.
The trick is to slow-cook the tomato and if you are using cans of tomato make sure you get rid of the excess juice.
This is a fabulous recipe.
Enjoy.'

Serves 6

450g pasta
6 tbs extra virgin olive oil
2 medium garlic cloves, peeled and sliced very thinly
300g tinned Italian peeled plum tomatoes, cut into large pieces,
with their juice
salt
black pepper in a grinder
10 fresh basil leaves, torn by hand into small pieces

Put the oil and garlic in a saucepan and turn the heat to medium.
When the garlic becomes coloured a pale gold, add the tomatoes and turn the heat down to very low.
Cook, uncovered, until the oil floats free of the tomatoes, for about 20 minutes.
Add salt and grindings of pepper and cook for another two to three minutes, stirring from time to time.
Off the heat, stir in the torn basil leaves.

Chef's note: The special taste of the sauce depends largely on the way the garlic is handled.
It must be sliced very thinly, sautéed only until it becomes just faintly coloured, and then allowed to simmer slowly in the tomato so that it can release all its sweetness.
Raw basil at the end contributes a fragrant fillip.
Make sure the basil does not undergo any cooking.
The sauce can be cooked several hours in advance.
Add the basil after reheating, as serving.

Or:
- Marcella Hazan's Bolognese Sauce Recipe - NYT Cooking
- Marcella Hazan’s Roast Chicken With Lemons Recipe - NYT Cooking
- Sugo di Pomodoro - Flavia's Flavors

Classic Ragu Sauce. The Chiappas.

Classic Ragu Sauce | The Chiappas
Welsh-Italian chef Michela Chiappa.
The best Ragu Sauce to my taste!

The real secret to this dish is simmering for 3 hours. It changes the taste as the meat is soft and tender and no tinned tomatoes are needed!

PREPARATION TIME: 30 mins
COOKING TIME: 3 hours
SERVES: 10

Ingredients:
100g smoked pancetta, roughly chopped
1 red onion, finely chopped
1 carrot, finely chopped
2 sticks celery, peeled and finely chopped
1kg good-quality beef mince
Good glug of red wine
140g tomato purée
2 beef stock cubes
2 bay leaves
Parmesan, to serve
Extra virgin olive oil

Method:
Put a large pan on a medium heat.
Once hot add the smoked pancetta and fry for 2-3 minutes on a low heat, or until starting to crisp up.
Then add the red onion, carrot and celery.
Stir together and sweat for roughly 10 minutes with lid on, or until soft and translucent.
Next add your beef to the pan, stirring occasionally until the beef has browned.
Add a good swig of red wine and keep stirring.
The aim is to burn off the alcohol leaving just a hint of the lovely wine flavour.
Add the tomato purée and stir into the sauce, then add 500ml (OR LESS!) of boiling water from the kettle and crumble in the beef stock cubes and the bay leaves.
Put the lid on and simmer for 3 hours to let the flavours intensify and the beef break down.

To serve the dish:
When ready to cook the pasta, place a large casserole dish on the heat and fill with boiling water and a generous pinch of salt.
Cook the pasta for approximately 2 minutes (although this will depend on the thickness of your pasta).
Always taste it and you want it soft but ‘al dente,’ which means the pasta will have a subtle bite to it.
It should not turn to mush as this is overcooked.
To serve place the pasta in a pan with the hot sauce.
You should only use 1-2 tablespoons of sauce per portion – don’t overload the sauce; the pasta should not be swimming in bolognaise!
Mix the pasta and sauce on the heat so that the sauce coats the pasta.
Add a splash of pasta water if needed to loosen the sauce and finish with a grating of parmesan and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.
Serve immediately to avoid the pasta overcooking!

Cook’s tips:
You can use dried pasta with this sauce if you don’t have time to make fresh pasta.
Simply use about 1kg of pasta for 8-10 people.
This recipe works brilliantly with tagliatelle.
Avoid using spaghetti as a wider pasta holds the sauce better.
This recipe is fantastic to make in a large batch and then freeze in individual portions – it takes time to make a really tasty ragu so it’s worth making lots so you can enjoy after a hard day’s work!
Heat the sauce from frozen.
Always taste as you go for seasoning – we love lots of parmesan as this avoids having to use too much salt.
But before you mix your pasta into your sauce, check it for salt, pepper and parmesan.

Also:
- MARCELLA HAZAN'S BOLOGNESE SAUCE recipe | Epicurious.com

Introduction to Italian Cuisine. Marcella Hazan.

Introduction to Italian Cuisine -Bureau of Taste:
In the nineteenth century, modern-day Italy was a group of separate republics.
Unification created a single state.
But people carried on cooking according to local tradition, resulting in a country with an enormously varied cuisine.

Traditionally, the country’s wealth comes from northern Italy.
It had trade routes with the rest of Europe – but most importantly, the port of Venice imported coffee, spices and sugar since the Middle Ages.
Salts were used to cure meat like bresaola, salami and pancetta, and trading in luxuries afforded expensive food: liqueurs, nougat, osso bucco, truffles and nuts.

Central Italy is known as the country’s ‘breadbasket’: rolling Tuscan hills and green grazing pastures surrounding Bologna and Umbria.
Spelt or farro is one of the oldest crops, with pasta, bread and beans forming the base to most meals.
Tuscan beef stew, and carafes of Chianti shape day-to-day of life in this agricultural part of Italy.

The craggy, dry and comparatively poor south of Italy owes its rich cuisine to past invasions: honey, olives and nuts from the Ancient Greeks, and citrus trees from the Byzantines.
Aubergine is used as ‘the poor man’s meat’, and buffalo milk is turned into the region’s most famous export – mozzarella.

While pizza, pasta, and ice cream are products of unified Italy, for a true taste of the country you should start with authentic, local dishes which can be found in Bocca, The Silver Spoon and Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking.
Remembering Marcella Hazan, Who Brought A Taste Of Italy To America : The Salt : NPR:
Marcella Hazan (April 15, 1924 – September 29, 2013) was an Italian-born cooking writer whose books were published in English.

Recipe: 'Roast Chicken With Lemons'
If this were a still life its title could be "Chicken with Two Lemons."
That is all that there is in it.
No fat to cook with, no basting to do, no stuffing to prepare, no condiments except for salt and pepper.
After you put the chicken in the oven you turn it just once.
The bird, its two lemons, and the oven do all the rest.
Again and again, through the years, I meet people who come up to me to say, "I have made your chicken with two lemons and it is the most amazingly simple recipe, the juiciest, best-tasting chicken I have ever had."
And you know, it is perfectly true.

Serves 4
1-2kg chicken
Salt
Black pepper, ground fresh from the mill
2 rather small lemons