A mainstay of Ida's menu, this deeply delicious, slow-simmered ragù is made with chicken hearts and gizzards, hailing from Italy's Marche region. To get a taste of London's Best Local Restaurant here is the recipe from Ida at my table by Simonetta Wenkert, read the opening extract here.
A note before you begin: the recipe calls for a mixture of minced beef and pork, plus chopped chicken hearts and gizzards. Should any of these ingredients prove difficult to source, 100% minced beef or 100% minced pork also works, though it is no longer a ragù Marchigiano at this point. Finally, the recipe serves 12, but the ragù lasts for at least 5 days in the fridge in a sealed container, and also freezes well. Ida used to make uova affogate, i.e 'drowned eggs' with her leftover ragù, breaking the eggs into a pan of warmed ragu and covering it with a lid until they were poached.
INGREDIENTS
Serves 12
- 1kg meat, ideally in the following proportions:
600g coarsely ground beef (not less than 5% fat)
200g minced pork (Italian plain 100% pork sausages could make up part of this, or even entirely replace the minced pork)
100g gizzards, cut into 1cm cubes (ask your butcher to clean them, and check for yellow membrane or fragments of grain or stones, which must be removed)
100g chicken hearts, cut into quarters - 2 medium carrots, peeled
- 4 sticks celery
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2 medium onions, peeled
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2 cloves garlic, peeled
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2 fresh bay leaves
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150g tomato purée
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500ml red wine
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800g blitzed tinned plum tomatoes (or passata)
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Salt and pepper
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200ml extra virgin olive oil
METHOD
Cut the carrots, celery and onion into approximately half-centimetre dice, known in Italian as soffritto.
Pour the oil into a heavy-bottomed pot with a capacity of at least 8 litres, the wider the better.
Add the chopped vegetables, bay leaves and the whole garlic cloves.
Cook at medium heat for around 15 minutes, making sure that the soffritto doesn't brown, stirring every now and then with a wooden spatula.
Add the chopped gizzards and hearts. Turn up the heat and cook for around 10 minutes, making sure they don't stick or burn.
Add 10 twists of ground pepper or around 2 level tsp of pre-ground pepper.
Add the minced pork and beef and break up with the wooden spatula or a large whisk, alternately thumping and stirring so as not to 'purée' the meat.
Cook for a further 10 minutes, regularly checking for clumps, and that the meat is colouring in a uniform manner.
When you can hear it sizzle and you can feel it beginning to catch, this means that most of the liquid has evaporated. At this point, add the wine and stir, scraping any residue from the bottom of the pan.
When you no longer smell the alcohol in the wine, add 4 level tsp of salt, as well as the tomato purée and stir constantly, until fully amalgamated, for 3 or 4 minutes.
Add the blitzed tinned tomatoes or passata, and stir.
Wait for it to boil, turn down the heat and cover so that it barely simmers.
Use a heat diffuser if you have one, or, alternatively, you could place the ragu directly on top of a large iron frying pan, which will prevent it from burning.
Cook for at least 2 hours, stirring occasionally.
The ragù is ready when you see reddish slicks of oil floating on the surface.
