January 20, 2022 Page 7
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Start the liquids and tomatoes in a large Le
Creuset with too much oregano, basil, bay
leaves, salt, sugar (a dash to mitigate acids),
and black pepper. This gives the sauce time
to start evaporating and thickening.
Chop, sauté (in olive oil), and add everything
else, one ingredient at a time. Cook
until the thickened sauce tastes right, at most
an hour. Add more herbs if needed. Top with
Parmigiana Reggiano (no substitute). Freeze
in apportioned baggies for future feasts.
The Neapolitan Sauce:
When you order any pasta al Sugo south of
Rome, you’ll be eating whatever the owner
feels like serving you. But usually, it will
taste something like this one. Americans will
generally recognize this sauce as something
like the version they’ve ordered in a better
Italian or Sicilian restaurant. Sicilian-Americans
might call it “gravy”.
True San Marzano tomatoes are grown only
on the ashy slopes of Mount Vesuvius and are
absolutely unique and non-negotiable. Beware
of “SM type” and other fakes. We buy the
whole ones and hand-squish them—yes, that
will freak out some people, but it ensures
actual pieces of tomato in the sauce. 2-3 large
cans, along with 1 small can of tomato paste.
Equal parts red wine and beef stock (1 can),
plus 4 anchovies.
1 onion, 1 bell pepper, 1 box mushrooms,
1 head of garlic.
1-2 lbs. top round or chuck steak, hand
chopped.
6 hot/sweet Italian sausages, sauteed or grilled
(but not pricked), and sliced on the thin side.
Parmigiana Reggiano (no substitute).
As with our Tuscan sauce, start the liquids
and tomatoes in a large Le Creuset with too
much basil, bay leaves, salt, sugar (a dash
to mitigate acids), and black pepper. This
gives the sauce time to start evaporating and
thickening. Meantime, chop, sauté, and add
everything else, one ingredient at a time. Add
more herbs as needed, but hold the oregano,
or else the true Sicilians will come looking
for you.
Le Creuset loves to burn tomato paste, so
your options are medium heat, constantly
watching for 2 hours, or low heat forever. We
sometimes make the sauce at night, cooking
on low heat for 3 hours, then leave it on the
stove and cook the next AM for another hour.
A spoon should stand up in it.
On Oils:
Never use any oil except olive, preferably
Italian, and too expensive. If you can’t taste
the difference, you’re not using enough of it.
On Pastas:
Don’t waste a good sauce on cheap or fast
pasta. The quicker it cooks (anything less
than 10 minutes), the lower the quality (if
any) of durum wheat semolina. Check the
package. In the USA, we only buy the Italian
product Rustichella ‘d Abruzzo (on Amazon
as a last resort). Here too, if you can’t taste
the difference, you might want to cut back
on the sauce.
On Preparation:
It might sound obvious, but the main ingredient
in any pasta dish is the pasta. The
sauce is meant to flavor, not drown it. That’s
the reason we never, ever skimp on pasta (but
don’t necessarily mind repeating ourselves).
We rarely use more than a cup or two of
sauce and pre-mix it with the pasta on the
stove, then give it a minute for absorption. If
the restaurant’s sauce splatters all over your
pristine white blouse, they’re disguising cheap
ingredients.
You can’t add too much grated cheese.
Seriously. There has to be a law somewhere.
Spaghetti is twirled on the fork in the base
of your plate. In Italy, if the server offers you
a spoon, it’s because they expect Americans
to ask for one. If you’re older than ten years
and chop your spaghetti, we might have to
disown you. Your Italian friends certainly will.
And BTW…
You might have noticed that we play rather
fast and loose with quantities of ingredients.
This isn’t out of laziness. Any Italian dish
has to be cooked to your (not our) taste
and adjusted on the fly to suit your whim.
Sometimes it all works beautifully, sometimes
not so much. And that’s what makes Italian
cooking such a fascinating ride.
Next up: The Thing About Bruxelles.
Ben & Glinda Shipley, published writers
and photographers, share their expertise and
experience of their many world travels. If
you have any questions or interest in a particular
subject, please email them at web@
heraldpublications.com. •
A table and a bottle of Chianti on a summer afternoon in Fiesole above Florence. A grumpy Mount Vesuvius at sunset from downtown Naples.
Tuscan sauce over fresh cheese and spinach tortellini. Neapolitan sauce over #12 spaghetti.
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