We eat fish on Christmas Eve, no meat allowed. After Midnight Mass, all bets are off! We make this sauce for Christmas Day: you can’t fit another meat in the pot! As many times as you reheat it, it just gets that much better, so if people are coming and going throughout the day, cook off only as much pasta as you need at the time — half a pound for every 3 people. The sauce will cover up to 2 pounds of pasta. If you are making this full menu, prepare the fudge and chill while your sauce simmers and before you prepare your salad. When you are done eating your 30 minute meal, the fudge will have chilled for 45 minutes and will then be firm enough to slice. Happy Holidays and Merry Eating!
| Level: | Intermediate |
| Total: | 35 min |
| Prep: | 15 min |
| Cook: | 20 min |
| Yield: | 4 large servings |
Ingredients
- 1/4 pound pancetta, thick cut, chopped into small bits (Italian cured pork, ask at deli counter)
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 1/2 pound bulk hot Italian sausage
- 1 pound combined ground beef, pork and veal
- 4 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1 medium carrot, peeled and finely chopped
- 1 rib celery, chopped
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 1 cup good quality dry red wine
- 1 cup prepared beef stock, paper container or canned
- 2 (32-ounce) cans chunky style crushed tomatoes
- Handful chopped flat-leaf parsley
- 1/4 teaspoon (a couple of pinches) allspice or cinnamon
- Coarse salt and black pepper
- 2 pounds penne rigate, cooked to al dente
- Grated Pecorino Romano, as an accompaniment
- Fresh, crusty bread, for mopping
Instructions
- Heat a deep pot over medium-high heat. Add pancetta and brown to render the fat. Transfer pancetta to paper towels to drain. To the pan add the oil, and the meats and brown and crumble them for 5 minutes. Stir in garlic, and pancetta bits.
- Chop carrot, celery, and onions near the stove and add to the pot as you work. Cook vegetables with meat 5 minutes and add wine. Cook for 1 minute; add stock and tomatoes to the pot.
- Stir in parsley, allspice, or cinnamon and season sauce with salt and pepper, to taste. Bring sauce to a boil, reduce heat to medium low, and cook 10 to 15 minutes, minimum, before serving. Reheated sauce only improves.
- Toss pasta (cook off only as much pasta as you need at the time: half a pound for every 3 people) with a couple of ladles of sauce to coat, then top bowl with extra sauce. Top pasta with lots of cheese and pass bread at the table.
Reviews
the allspice makes the difference!
Love this pasta! So hearty!
Delicious! Made this Christmas day and only one modification which was to exclude the pancetta. Everyone loved it!
This was absolutely delicious. Made exactly as recipe. Will definitely become a family regular
This recipe is legend in my family. I made it for the first time a number of years ago and people still request it.
We made this last night for a New Years Eve dinner and it was fantastic! The flavors are superb. I will say it makes a lot of food, probably enough for eight or 10 people. We ended up only using about 24 ounces of pasta and still had too much cooked pasta. We layered ours in a casserole dish with some mozzarella cheese and baked it for 10 to 15 minutes to get it bubbly. That was one adjustment I made. This sauce would be good in any Italian recipe and the flavors meld very well together and even after only simmering on the stove for about 15 minutes, I felt it tasted better than one of my family recipes for a homemade Italian sauce. We could not find chunky style crushed tomatoes so we used one can of crushed tomatoes and one can of Italian style diced tomatoes, this will be a regular meal at our house!