Why Restaurant Ragu Tastes So Much Better

Restaurant-Style Ragu with Potato Gnocchi

This recipe builds flavor in stages: gently sweet soffritto, deeply browned beef, reduced wine and tomato, then a long, slow cook. The ragu is served with homemade potato gnocchi.

Ingredients

For the ragu

• Beef mince: 50% shin and 50% chuck; total quantity not stated
• Pancetta, diced; quantity not stated
• Pork belly, diced about 0.5–1 cm; quantity not stated
• Carrot, onion and celery for the soffritto; quantities not stated
• A few cloves of garlic
• A pinch of salt, plus more seasoning as needed
• Neutral oil
• Tomato purée or paste and tomato passata; quantities not stated
• Milk, added in two stages; quantity not stated
• Red wine; quantity not stated
• Parmesan rind
• Bay leaf
• A small amount of nutmeg
• Stock: chicken stock is used; beef stock also works
• A few knobs of butter, to finish

For the vinegar-sugar gastrique

• 100 g vinegar
• 50 g sugar

For the potato gnocchi

• Red-skin potatoes, enough to yield about 500 g cooked potato
• 1 egg yolk
• 65 g “00” flour
• Salt, for seasoning and the cooking water
• Olive oil, for the tray and pan
• A little Parmesan, to help bind the gnocchi with the sauce

Method

1. Make the soffritto. Slowly render the pancetta in a pan with the carrot, onion and celery. Add a pinch of salt and cook for about 10 minutes, until the vegetables are soft, pale and sweet—not deeply browned. Grate in the garlic and cook for a couple of minutes. Remove the soffritto and set aside.

2. Brown the beef. Use the same pan, add a touch of neutral oil and heat it well. Add the beef mince. Keep the heat high while its released liquid evaporates, breaking up the mince with a wooden spoon or spatula so it doesn’t form large clumps. Once the liquid is gone and the meat starts to color, reduce the heat and continue browning until it is deeply caramelized. Scrape the browned fond from the pan regularly and mix it through the meat.

3. Add the pork belly and tomato purée. Stir in the diced pork belly and gently soften it; it doesn’t need deep browning. Add the tomato purée or paste and cook it until it darkens from bright red to a deeper red-brown.

4. Add the first milk. Turn down the heat and stir in milk. Let it reduce until it has been absorbed by the meat.

5. Reduce the wine. Add red wine, raise the heat slightly and reduce it by about half, until the mixture looks almost glazed. Scrape the pan as it reduces to dissolve the fond.

6. Build the sauce. Return the soffritto to the pan. Stir in the passata, Parmesan rind, bay leaf and a small amount of nutmeg. Add stock and scrape down the sides of the pan.

7. Slow-cook. Bring the ragu to a simmer, cover with a lid and cook in a low oven at 120°C for about 4½ hours. The presenter prefers the oven to the stovetop for a gentler, more even cook.

8. Make the gastrique. While the ragu cooks, put the vinegar and sugar in a small pan. Bring to the boil, then simmer for about 1 minute, just until slightly thickened.

9. Finish the ragu. Remove the Parmesan rind and bay leaf. Stir in the second addition of milk, then a few knobs of butter. Add gastrique a little at a time, tasting as you go, to balance the sauce’s richness with acidity.

10. Make the gnocchi. Bake the potatoes at 160°C until cooked through. Let them cool slightly, halve them and pass the flesh through a drum sieve or fine sieve; measure out about 500 g. Season, add the egg yolk and 65 g flour, and bring the dough together gently, working it as little as possible. Divide the dough, roll it into ropes and cut into pieces.

11. Cook and serve. Drop the gnocchi into salted water. When they rise to the surface, they’re ready. Drain briefly and transfer to an oiled tray so they don’t stick. Warm them gently in a pan with a little olive oil over medium-high heat, add ragu and a little Parmesan, and toss to bind before serving.

Tips and Variations

• Keep the soffritto pale and sweet: deeply browned vegetables can make the finished sauce bitter.
• Add garlic later than the vegetables so it is less likely to burn or catch on the pan.
• Give the beef time to release its liquid and then brown properly. Keep breaking it up for more surface area, and scrape up the fond as it forms.
• The pancetta is mainly for smoky fat, not heavy browning. The pork belly enriches the sauce as its collagen breaks down.
• Season throughout cooking, then adjust the final balance with gastrique.
• The presenter credits the early milk addition as a tenderizing approach associated with Massimo Bottura, and the late milk addition for roundness to Marco Pierre White.
• Quicker variation: Leave out the pork belly, red wine and pancetta. Use a simple soffritto and good-quality meat, while keeping the techniques of cooking the vegetables first and properly browning the meat.
• The presenter recommends good-quality vinegar for a more flavorful, less sharply acidic finish.

Presenter/channel: The presenter is a chef from Fallow; chief taster Will Murray also tastes the finished dish. Referenced chefs: Massimo Bottura and Marco Pierre White.