No garlic, no basil, no oregano. No secret ingredients. Just tomato and meat flavour. Clean. Pure. Delicious. Try it. You’ll be surprised how good easy tastes. It goes pretty much like any other ragu. Brown the meat with some onion, add some wine. Reduce. Add tomatoes and simmer. For hours. This is slow food. You can’t make it fast food. Make sure you have time when you start this. Or make it the day before. It reheats fine. This isn’t in your face rage. Neapolitan ragu flavours are lighter. There’s plenty of flavour. The sausage sees to that. But it isn’t heavy. No beef. No beefy taste.
Neapolitan ragu needs good quality ingredients
There’s nowhere to hide in this recipe. The simplicity means every ingredient has to pull its weight. So buy good quality pork. The best Italian sausage you can get. Go see your butcher. They will fix you up. This isn’t a place to use up those Johnsonville brats you have in the back of the freezer. Make sure you use good quality canned tomatoes. Tomatoes are the star ingredient. Don’t skimp. San Marzano tomatoes are a good choice if you can get them. Prepping your tomatoes is a nice touch. Buy whole tomatoes and pass them through a food mill. If you don’t have a food mill you can substitute passata. Won’t be quite the same though. If you are going to use passata definitely try to get the best you can. Lousy passata makes lousy sauce. Did I mention there is nowhere to hide? No heavy handed seasoning here.
Good quality pasta counts as well. Neapolitan ragu is a labour of love. Might be an idea to try some of those expensive pastas you see in Italian delis. A nice broad noodle like tagliatelle or pappardelle works well. Toss Neapolitan ragu with pasta and sprinkle some freshly grated parmeggiano reggiano on top. Maybe a bit of fresh torn basil and a bit of black pepper. Just pure comfort food. If you have some left over try making Neapolitan lasagna. That’s some crazy good stuff too.
