Ragù di anatra

Otherwise known as Duck Ragu. Duck legs are cheap. We are talking £1.25 for a leg. This is a blessing. There are two things in life which are bogglingly cheap and make my life better – they are duck legs and cans of Carlsberg.

Whilst my Carlsberg supply is as reliable as oxygen, duck supply can be poor at the best of times. I found 8 legs the other day in a Tesco metro and bought them all. I froze 5, roasted three for a duck salad, and we had one left. Tonight I used it making ragù di anatra – a duck meat ragu.

Duck makes a good change from beef and pork. Serves two with plenty of sauce for mopping up with bread… you could easily stretch this to four, but I am clearly a gut bucket.

First roast your single duck leg. 180 degrees for an hour. You should cook a batch of duck legs and just keep them in the fridge. You can make duck shepherds pie, duck spring rolls, duck salads (soy and honey dressing), confit, rillettes. It’s endless. The rendered fat you can freeze or store in the fridge for roasting potatoes.

Once the duck leg is roasted, rest for ten minutes then strip the meat from the bone and tear into small chunks. Take the bones and skin, crack the bones a couple of times with a knife and then simmer slowly in a small pan with about 3/4 of a pint of water with a couple of bay leaves.

While the stock is simmering, cook your soffritto. Half a large onion, celery stick and a medium carrot – finely diced and fried in a good couple of glugs of olive oil. Cook over a low heat for 10-15 minutes. As a guide to when it is done, it smells sweet and is stickier but not caremelised.

Add a glass of red wine, and reduce over a high heat for two minutes, then add the sieved stock and a tin of tomatoes, chuck in a bit of honey to take the edge off the tinned tomatoes. Check for seasoning and simmer gently for 2o minutes. Rest for twenty minutes and serve over fresh egg pasta such as tagliatelle, pappardelle or fettuccine or whatever you like.

Ragù

Ragù is the basic Italian meat sauce. Everyone has a version – some people use only beef, or substitute pork for pancetta, a few people cook it in milk, add basil, a bay leaf, and even garlic. There must be a hundred variations. Mostly they involve some kind of chopped or minced meat (ragù napoletano is more like a pot roast). This is a very simple traditional, authentic version from Noni’s family –  no bells & whistles – just the basic core elements. It is the  sauce for bolognese, lasagne, arancini –  a mix of beef and pork, tomatoes, onions, celery, carrots, and red wine. No garlic, herbs or anything to get in the way – this sauce is perfect in its simplicity.

Ragu (bolognese)

Regardless of what ingredients you want to put in this – there are three elements which should be adhered to. The first is to carefully brown the meat in batches deglazing with red wine, secondly to ensure you slowly sweat your  soffritto, and finally – use good quality tinned tomatoes.

Ragu (bolognese)

Ragu (bolognese)

Ingredients:

250g minced pork and 250g minced beef

Two tins of tomatoes

For the soffritto…

1 large onion

1 stick celery

1 carrot

A large glass of red wine

To begin, brown the meat in batches. You want to cook off the water in the meat and get some colour and flavour going. I season at this stage. After each batch, throw some red wine into the pan to deglaze and then tip this over the cooked mince. You probably only need to do two batches  (250g of meat a batch). After this I cook  the soffritto – a fine dice of carrot, celery and onion. There is no garlic in this recipe – onions and garlic seldom belong together.  Cook the soffritto for at least 10 minutes to get it soft and sweet. Then add in your meat – turn it up high and pour in a large glass of red wine. Let it sizzle off, and while the pan is hot, add your tin of tomatoes. When it is simmering turn the heat down to medium. I generally cook for about 2.5 hours on a low/medium heat, adding water if I need to.

You will know when it is ready as the meat will be soft to the bite.