Pasta with ragù is the typical Sunday dish in Puglia. During the colder months, it’s even possible to smell the irresistible smell, walking on a Sunday morning through the alleys of the Apulian cities. Originally it was the main Sunday dish as the sauce was used to season the pasta and the meat consumed as a second course.
From an early age we are used to spending Sundays with the family. As a child, I remember it as a special day since at the end of a long work or school week, it brought the whole family to grandmother’s house around a long lunch table. Every one had the habit of bringing something, be it a bottle of wine, cheese or some pastries. But the main course was the one that grandmother cooked, the famous pasta dish with meat sauce. She, with joy in her heart at seeing the whole family reunited, woke up early in the morning to prepare a tasty lunch.
The preparation is simple and the result is really tasty and inviting, even if the cooking is quite long. We start with braciole: meat rolls stuffed with parsley, garlic and parmesan. Pan sear the braciole in olive oil over high heat briefly, just enough to brown the outside of the roll. You may skip this step, but it definitely adds flavor to the dish. Then, into the sauce the meat goes! This is the part that takes a good amount of time but it is worth the wait. It’s better if you use the typical homemade preserve, which becomes so tasty that it can be used to season pasta: orecchiette are almost always the chosen ones.
Pasta with ragù is the typical Sunday dish in the North as in the South of Italy. As “ragù” the most famous is Bolognese ragù, a classic recipe from the Emilian tradition. Anyway here in the South when we say ragù we mean the Neapolitan ragù, made with whole meat and not minced meat.
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