Receta Donatella Arpaia's Mama's Meatballs and Ragu
I’ve always been a huge fan of Saveur
Magazine and not just because, over the years, they’ve published more of my
food pieces than anyone else. To me, the
magazine broke the mold. The relentless
publication of Celebrity chef’s recipes in every other food magazine separates
Saveur instantly. Saveur has recipes you
don’t find anywhere else. They have a
particular fondness for grandmothers’ cooking whether the grandmother is called
“Opa” or “Ba Noi.” One of the earliest grandmother stories I
can remember was in a 1994 issue of the magazine. A food writer and cooking
teacher, Peggy Knickerbocker, took us into the kitchens of a group of home
cooks in San Francisco’s North Beach. This center of Italian American cooking
was presided over by “Old Stoves”.
One of Saveur's "Old Stoves",
Rose Pistola Ms. Knickerbocker explained:" An "Old
stove" is gentle, complimentary North Beach slang for someone who has put
in a lot of time in front of a lot of stoves in his or her day. Old stoves are
sometimes restaurant chefs, or retired restaurant chefs—but more often they're
simply home cooks, with many years of experience making savory dishes for
themselves, their families, and their friends. Old stoves are renowned
throughout the community for their culinary skills. They're old souls, legends,
well aged and cured. There is not one chance in a million that you'll have a
bad meal at the hands of an old stove.”
Donatella and "Mama" ArpaiaThe story of North
Beach’s Old Stoves went on to give their recipes which all
shared a common thread. Everything they
cooked was simmered for hours, and the ingredients were a little loosey goosey. If they had a chicken neck or a leftover pork
chop, it would find its way into their Sunday ‘gravies’ which were, I was to
discover, a Sunday fixture not just in San Francisco but in Italian American
households all over the country. I
became a collector of these recipes and whenever I see one, I feel compelled to
spend a Sunday afternoon trying to replicate it. This is almost impossible of course because
the preferred quantities tend to be ‘some oregano’ or ‘a handful of
basil’. So I was pleased to see that
even a chef like Donatella Arpaia, admit “no matter how hard I try, I can’t get (her mother's) recipe exactly alike.” But I think
that’s the point.
Rocco and Mama di Spirito Chef Arpaia is a Long
Island girl who gave up her career as a lawyer to launch one in food. For the past 15 years, she’s been racking up
awards from everyone from the James Beard Foundation to New York magazine, which
named her meatballs the best in the city in 2007. Now meatballs are a special fascination of
Meatballs and Ragu”, I was hooked. You
have to be very brave to celebrate your Mother’s meatballs. The last time it was done in New York, Chef
Rocco di Spirito was practically run out of town for featuring his mother’s
recipe at his soon defunct “Rocco’s”. It
seemed that anyone with any remote connection to an Italian American mother
simply did not approve of Mama di Spirito’s version,much preferring their own and having no qualms about saying so. Nevertheless, Donatella
forged ahead and shared her mother’s recipe for their family’s Sunday
dinner. Mama Arpaia's meatballs are flawless. They are pillows of ground beef lightened with Italian bread and egg and flavored with garlic and Parmigiano or Gran Padano cheese. Spareribs and sweet Italian sausage are the meats in the ragu. These start out whole and as the cooking process continues, they slowly break down into the tomatoes. The
result is a pasta sauce so meltingly rich, so tender that it embraces you like
a hug from your Italian grandmother…even if you, like me, never had an Italian
grandmother.
The major lesson here is
one Chef Arpaia shared on her blog: In order to get the full flavor into your
‘gravy’, you can’t rush it. Patience is
essential and turning up the heat cannot compensate for long cooking
times. But you will be richly rewarded
and the praise will lap over you like a Sunday afternoon nap. Here is the recipe:
Recipe for Donatella
Arpaia’s “Mama’s Meatballs and Ragu”
Serves 8-10. Plan on an afternoon of cooking.
- ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
- 2 celery stalks with leaves,
- chopped
- Kosher salt & freshly
- ground pepper
- 1 ½ lbs. (6-8) meaty, bone-in-pork
- spareribs, rinsed
- 1 ½ lbs. (6-8) sweet Italian
- sausage with fennel seeds, pierced all over with a fork
- 3 (35 oz.) cans whole or plum tomato purée
- 1 handful fresh basil leaves
- 1. Warm
- olive oil in a large, heavy-bottom pan over medium heat. Add
- celery and onion, season with salt and pepper, and sauté, partially covered
- about 5 minutes until golden and soft.
- 2. Add
- meats and raise the heat to medium-high.
- 3. Sauté, turning occasionally until
- browned all over. Add
- garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the wine and cook until it
- evaporates, 5 minutes.
- 4. Add
- tomato puree, basil, salt and pepper. Partially cover, bring to a boil, and
- reduce heat. Let it simmer 1 ½-2 hours.
- 1
- small loaf stale Italian bread (about 8 thick slices) torn into 2 1/2”
- chunks
- 2
- lbs. 80% lean ground beef chuck, broken up
- 5
- garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
- cup finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
- 1
- large egg, lightly beaten
- 1-½
- cups grated Parmigiano-Reggiano or Grana Padano
- Kosher
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1. Put
- bread in a bowl and add enough warm water to cover. Let stand for 5 minutes,
turning to moisten evenly. Gently squeeze out excess water.
2. Add
beef, garlic, parsley, egg and ¾ cup of Parmigiano to the bread and combine.
Season with Salt and pepper. Knead the mixture for at least 5 minutes with your
hands, until uniformly combined and smooth.
Pinch
a tablespoon of meat into your palms and shape into a ball. Place on a baking
sheet and continue with the rest of the mixture.
3. Fill
a 10” skillet halfway with canola oil and heat over high heat. When strands
form along the bottom, lower 8-10 meatballs at a time into the oil. Do not
overcrowd. They should be ¾ submerged in oil. Reduce the heat to medium
and fry for 6-7 minutes each side, turning only once. Remove
the meatballs from the oil and turn the heat back up to high before starting
the second batch. 20 minutes before serving,
add the meatballs to the simmering ragu.
4. Make your pasta following
package instructions. When draining the
pasta, set aside 1 cup of pasta water, to thin the gravy if required.