I do apologise sincerely for my lack of posts since the end of last year. For those who don’t know, I was really busy with my wedding preparations and that’s really all I have been up to the past 3 months! and yes, I am married! (:

And after the wedding, it was our amazing honeymoon in Bali and then it was Chinese New Year. Not sure about you guys, but CNY is a time to just spend with family and feast! haha

Well. I am back! And for the first post of 2012, I am blogging about one of my favourite cuisines. Italian.

Who doesn’t like Italian? I love love love love pastas. Creamy, tomato-y, squid ink. You name it, I love it. haha. That’s how much I love pastas. A habit of mine (a good one I think!) is to try out some of the yummy dishes I had in restaurants/cafes. So far, I’ve tried making lasagne, gnocchi, risottos. One thing that I’ve always wanted to try is ragu.I remember watching the Italian Food Safari and said to myself “You really gotta try to make this one day”

Tonight was the night. I took out my “Simply Italian” cookbook bought by my mummy (underused in my opinion) and flipped through the book from the first page to the last and found a ragu recipe! So I decided to swing by Springvale Market after work & got the ingredients and whipped it up for dinner.

A keeper. This recipe is definitely a keeper. I could just eat the ragu without any pasta. The flavour was amazing. I use to think it’s like a bolognese. But it’s so much more. A pity I didn’t have time to cook it a little longer, I’m pretty sure it would taste even better when the meats have all broken down into the tomato base. mmm.

Ragu (adapted from Simply Italian by Sophie Braimbridge)

Ingredients :

60g butter

90g pancetta, finely chopped

1 onion, finely chopped

1 celery, finely chopped

1 carrot, grated

250g minced beef

200g minced pork

200g chicken livers, trimmed and finely chopped

1/2 tsp dried oregano

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

125ml milk

125ml dry white wine

250ml beef stock

400g tin chopped tomatoes

2 heap tbs tomato paste

salt and pepper

grated Parmesan, to serve

Steps :

1. Heat the butter in a heavy based saucepan and add the pancetta. Cook until lightly brown and add the onion, celery and carrot. Cook over moderate heat for about 8 mins or until soften, stirring from time to time.

2. Add the minced beef, pork and oregano to the saucepan. Season with the nutmeg, salt and pepper.

3. Cook for about 5 mins, or until the meat has changed colour but not browned. Add the chicken liver and cook till it changes colour.

4. Stir in the milk and simmer for a couple of minutes. Pour in the wine and increase the heat and allow it to boil for 2-3 minutes or until the wine is absorbed. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

5. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste and half of the stock, partially covering the pan and allow it to cook for a minimum of 1 hour (optimally, 3 hours). Add more stock as it is needed to keep the sauce moist.

6. To serve, cook pasta of your choice according to the package, drain and toss the pasta with the ragu sauce and serve with grate Parmesan.

ENJOY! (:

ps : store leftovers in the fridge up to 3 days or in the freezer for a month (: