Translating from chef to home cook: Ryan's sausage ragu

There is a language that professional chefs use. You can hear it, sometimes, if you sit in a restaurant close to a kitchen and hear the "shorthand" that they toss at each other. It's much more apparent, in many restaurants, when you look at what they call "the Bible." Every restaurant has a list of recipes that they go to with frequency. Even a restaurant that prides itself on a changing menu needs some consistency. Chicken stock, for example, is such a common ingredient that there must be a standard way of making it. And everyone follows that "Bible." And it will be written in shorthand, with instructions that, perhaps, only restaurant staff will understand, or "the language of the kitchen," which professionals will understand, but which you or me will need translated.
I saw this in action not too long ago, as a friend and I got a recipe from one of our favorite chefs, for sausage ragu. One of the ingredients called for was "1 qt mirepoix." Ok, now you do NOT find mirepoix in the dairy section, between the milk and buttermilk. Mirepoix is a mix of finely diced onion, carrot and celery. And there is a "classic ratio" based on weight: 2:1:1 with onions being in the lead. And note that the recipe calls for "one quart." Wait. This is solids. Why quart? Well, the reason for that is that when you're cooking in a restaurant kitchen, you do NOT have measuring cups out there. Take a look at the prep work sometime. They use those plastic containers that we get take out food in. See what I mean? There was more in the recipe that a professional chef would have known. For example, the recipe called for simmering the ingredients for 2 hours. A restaurant chef, making ragu, knows that time is a fluid concept for these things. In fact, it takes much, MUCH longer. Maybe in transcribing the recipe, someone goofed, who knows? But a professional knows these things. So when you get a recipe from a professional chef or kitchen, proceed with a bit of care, and get in touch with someone (Like yours truly), who can take the recipe and translate it into a version you can use at home.

Anyway, I adore Ryan's cooking, and his recipe was clear enough for me to work with. I'm going to present MY version of it. Ryan will give you his, if you want to try reading "Cookese." Better yet, go to Barbuto and try it. It's worth it.

Start with a pound of hot sausage meat, and a pound and a half of sweet sausage meat. You can frequently get this, without the casings, at a farmers' market pork stand, or a good butcher. If you can't, buy enough sausage, run a sharp knife down each one, and pull out the meat. That's all you need to do.

Ryan's recipe then specified "brown the meat." It didn't tell you to add fat. Let me tell you: if you try to brown sausage meat without it, you will burn the meat, your pan, and your gut. Put a few tablespoons of oil in a big pot and when it's hot, add the ground meat. Stir it around (like I told you in Marcella's beef ragu), breaking it up, just until the pink is gone. Then put it aside, leaving the fat in there.

Now get your "mirepoix." You can make this by taking two peeled onions, two carrots that you scrape, and three stalks of celery, and cutting them into chunks. Drop everything in the food processor and pulse it until it's nice and fine. Add this to the hot oil, lower the heat, and cover the pot (this is called "sweating" the mirepoix, and that's what the recipe said : sweat the mirepoix for ten minutes. Again, a professional knows what this means. Maybe you don't. Now you do).
Sweating softens the vegetables without browning them. You want that here, because you're going to cook these for a while. If they brown, you will get a sweet, or even burnt sauce.

After the ten minutes, put the meat back in the pan, and add two cups of white wine. Use a dry one, and make sure it's something you'd drink. Raise the heat and cook it off. It won't take long. Finally, add a quart and a half of chicken stock, and also a large (28-35 ounce) can of tomatoes. Before you add the tomatoes, crush the solids with your hands. (the original recipe called for tomato puree. Again, this is a standard ingredient in a professional Italian kitchen, and again, those plastic containers come out. You and I have cans. Crushing the tomatoes with your hands will do fine.

Add all of this, and add a bit of salt. Now, the recipe did NOT tell you to do that, because every professional seasons as s/he goes along. So should you. Taste as you're cooking this. Bring the whole mass to a simmer, and lower the heat. Let it bubble away... for six hours.

Yup, for six hours. Stir it every now and then, but I'm not exaggerating. What you are looking for is a texture that is sort of like what you get with pudding: you want to be able to run a spoon down the middle of the sauce, and have it SLOWLY move back to the center of the pot. Anything softer and wetter than that is too wet. Another way to tell that you're "there" is if the stuff is beginning to stick to the bottom of the pot. When that happens, take everything off the heat and let it cool.

You'll get about seven cups of ragu out of this recipe, and you will be in heaven. What you have here, is one of those "money in the bank" recipes. Seven cups of sausage ragu will sauce up to 28 - yup - 28 - portions of pasta. So, freeze a lot of it. Eat some of it right away. If you want to try something other than pasta, put it on polenta. Or, if you want the ultimate sloppy joe, toast some bread.

This is good stuff. If you go through the recipe, you'll see that yes, it IS time consuming, but again, how much work did you have to do?

It's going to be cold and rainy and snowy in the coming weeks. You'll be indoors. Set aside a day and make this. Put some food in your freezer for those days when you KNOW you're not going to be able to make dinner. A plate of this, and a salad, should make anyone happy. And if they're not, dump them.