Sausage Ragù

In fairness to Ms. Moskin, this recipe does not purport to be a classic ragu. I am an experienced cook (read: old). I am also an Italian-American and an admitted garlic-aholic and I didn't miss it. The flavor is very rich yet subtle and delicate. But in her intro, Moskin mentions that you may add garlic and other herbs if you so choose. I would encourage cooks to ignore self-fashioned, snarky experts and give this recipe a chance. It is really very good.

You should never buy diced or crushed anything, such as pineapples or tomatoes - always buy cored pineapple slices and whole tomatoes. That way you know exactly what you're getting, which means no diced tomato stems or crushed pineapple cores. Just a tip I received from an exec chef a long time ago.

This is incredible. As other here have noted here in comments, mixing hot and sweet sausage will help the complexity of this sauce. Add garlic to taste when cooking the onions, carrots, and celery, and some hot red pepper flakes if you want a bit of a kick. Lastly, the cooking times noted are way off for a gas range at sea level. The 40 minutes mentioned in step one took 1 hour and 30 minutes for me but it was worth it. The 20-25 minutes step three about an hour. So be patient!

PS:to the alternative recipe I just posted,buy the real San Marzano tomatoes which are sold in cans indicating their provenence from Agro Sarnese Nocerino DOP,grown there and canned there according to strict regulations,only real San Marzano tomatoes have this authenication and all the cans are numbered...don't buy the fake Chinese San Marzano tomatoes the Chinese have indicated as Italian,the buyer must beware(don't believe me?check it out in Internet,even in an article here in the NYTimes)

Trying to caramelize the meat and vegetables at the same time is hard.Do the meat first and then remove it.
Do the vegetables and then add the meat back in.

I cooked this as written (with only garlic as my addition to the recipe) and it was fabulous! Not too heavy on tomato nor watery at all. I made the ragu and made a lasagna out of it and it was a hit with the entire family. Doubling the recipe next time and will probably use red wine instead of water with the tomato paste. Awesome recipe!!

Made this during the week. Cooking time is essential to get the rich taste of ragu. I used Trader Joe's Sweet Italian Chicken Sausage as my sausage. Added some pancetta as it started to cook down to add some fat/pork. YUM! Those were my only changes to the recipe. My husband loved it the first night and said it only got better for leftovers the next night. This is the best ragu/red meat sauce I have ever made. My "go to" from now on. Thanks for the recipe Julia.

My family was waiting all afternoon and evening for this sauce. The longer it cooked on low, the better it smelled, and the hungrier everyone became, until, when it was finished and the dish was served, they fell on it like a pack of hamsters and devoured everything. I ate mine a bit slower and enjoyed it immensely. It was cooking on low for three hours....

Geez, it's the end of Summer, why wouldn't you use the last of the Plum tomatoes out of the Garden...I still have a huge bowlful left, they were just waiting for this recipe!!

And come Winter, to avoid the seeds in the 'whole tomatoes' why wouldn't you use the 'diced' version, that also comes with the juicy tomato like thick juice? You can get them from San Marzano as well, not the Hunts version.

Fantastic recipe! However, I looked at the nutritional info and it is based on this being 18 servings!! I'm not sure that a pound of pasta would feed 5 in our house.

Borrowing from Marcela Hazan's Bolognese Ragu, use very fatty ground beef. Ideally get the butcher to grind a fatty piece of chuck but I have found 80/20 hamburger is basically just that and works very nicely.

You might need to add some fennel seed and red pepper flakes to make it taste like the pork sausage version though.

The main difference between ragù napoletano e ragù bolognese is how the meat is used...in Naples the meats are put in whole and then later taken out and served as a second course...in Bologna the meat is finely ground and never taken out...Up to you the choice!

when meat and vegetables are caramelized, add some wine and let it cook down, then add the tomatoes. Flavor lacks some depth to me -- I added some bay leaves, and probably will add garlic next time too. If using sweet sausage, a dash of pepper flakes would make a difference too. Tinker with it - worth it

I don't think I've ever seen crushed San Marzanos, and trust me, you want those for any sauce recipe. It's worth the expense and the extra step of crushing them yourself to use them.

I used this recipe as a base, taking additional inspiration from several other recipes, all of which indicated slightly different ingredients and order of steps. So I won't be one of those people who don't make the actual recipe and then comment -- except to say that my takeaway from it was that the basic recipe is very forgiving/flexible as long as you use the low & slow cooking method to gradually caramelize the mirepoix, meat (especially) and tomatoes each time something is added. Exellent!