I remember.
I am a few years old and sitting in the kitchen chair, the one in the corner near the French window.
Grandma is cooking while I play.
I have many memories of that distant, happy time, and they are all beautiful.
The legacy of the years spent in the kitchen with her and all the other azdore (homemakers) of the house is one I have been able to embrace in adulthood. To my great surprise, I discovered that I had assimilated the gestures and cataloged the aromas that characterize the preparation stages of many recipes.
I made this discovery almost by chance when, hungry and tired of eating sandwiches, I decided to improvise a pasta dish with eggplant sauce. I had never cooked before, yet I seemed to know exactly what to do.
I wrote about this moment in my post dedicated to aubergine balls.
The ragu test
Through trial and error, I discovered that I could try even complex preparations, such as ragù.
As I cook the traditional Bolognese sauce, I notice the smell of the vegetables, pungent at first, then becoming balanced as they are sautéed. The sweet aroma of the pancetta melting, that of the tomato sauce cooking. Finally, from the perfect essence of ragù, after hours of quiet bubbling, I know it is ready just by sniffing the air.
I can say that I learned how to make ragù even before cutting an onion or discovering that chopped vegetables have a soul.
In my childhood home, I tasted numerous quick sauces and long-cooked ragù. Grandma Sara was a cook who knew how to happily alternate tradition with imaginative innovation.
This palate training left me with a certain passion for preparing pasta sauces, which I have always associated with the most comforting aspect of the vast gastronomic landscape.
In addition to my curiosity to discover new flavors to broaden my culinary horizons.
Using a definition that is very fashionable nowadays, I think I am a hunter of ragù recipes.
I develop new recipes, do historical research on the subject, and, of course, try those of others. Sometimes with great satisfaction and gratitude.
As Ina Garten wrote, comfort foods often transcend cultures and borders.
I completely agree with her. Curiosity leads us to try new flavors or use familiar ingredients in different ways. And thanks to this, we enrich our family repertoire with new recipes that we will love as if they had always been ours.
I recently tried a recipe for ragù by Ali Slagle published in the New York Times.
After reading the title, I already wanted to get cooking.
I love simple recipes like the one I’m about to share. They are the key to surviving even the most challenging days, drawing comfort from the food I cook and eat.
This colorful vegan recipe is perfect in many ways. For example, it tastes good, it allows me to feed my vegetarian friend, and it can be frozen.
The star of this vegetable ragù is red cabbage. Still, in the notes before the recipe, you’ll find an alternative if you don’t like this vegetable or want to change it up.
Notes on the recipe
I recommend preparing the ingredients in advance so you can add them in sequence without rushing.
If you prefer a rustic sauce, follow the recipe. For a smoother consistency, use an immersion blender for 1 to 2 minutes after cooking.
You will end up with a generous amount of ragù. You can store it in the refrigerator for a few days, or divide it into portions and freeze it, ready to use.
For its versatile flavor, you can use it to accompany scrambled eggs or steak. This advice is also provided by the recipe’s author.
As an alternative to red cabbage, I recommend using carrots.
In the New York Times, Ali Slagle paired red cabbage ragù with paccheri pasta. So I did the same.
I made a few changes to the original recipe due to my intolerance to garlic and chili pepper (the latter is optional in the original).
I added soy sauce, which helps to give this red cabbage ragù a full-bodied flavor: in its simplicity, a small masterpiece.
Buona cucina, Monica
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Reading Note
Ina Garten on the importance of Comfort Food: an article I recommend to anyone who loves this superb food writer and cook and believes in the comforting power of food.
Red cabbage ragù
Ingredients
- 350 g of red cabbage or carrots
- 5 g of fresh parsley
- 1 yellow onion, approx. 200 g
- 50 g of tomato paste
- 100 ml of lukewarm or hot water
- 20 g of butter
- 10 g of olive oil
- 50 g of red wine
- 200 ml of water
- 40 g of unsalted soy sauce
- 20 g of granulated or brown sugar
- salt to taste
Instructions
- Wash the cabbage and parsley. Discard the onion's skin.
- Finely chop the onion, parsley, and cabbage, keeping the ingredients separate.
- In a glass, dissolve the tomato paste in 100 ml of warm water.
- In a high-sided saucepan, melt the butter with the olive oil.
- Add the onion and a pinch of salt, stir, and fry gently for 2 minutes. Then, add the cabbage, stir, and cook for 3 minutes over low heat on a small burner, then add the diluted tomato paste.
- Stir, add the red wine, and cook for five minutes over medium-low heat on a small burner.
- Add the sugar, soy sauce, water, and half of the finely chopped parsley, setting aside the rest for garnish, then stir.
- Cook over medium-low heat for about 30-40 minutes. Towards the end of cooking, add water if necessary; conversely, if the sauce is too runny, continue cooking.
- Then turn off the heat, taste, and add salt if needed. Add the remaining parsley and stir.
Tips
- Use this sauce to dress your favorite pasta, preferably short pasta.
- You can prepare it in advance and refrigerate it for a few days. Or you can store it in the freezer for a month.
Vegetable pasta sauce recipes from my tradition
I have a passion for vegetable ragù recipes. On the other hand, one of my favorite pasta sauces is a fake sauce made with parsley, or, as they say in Romagna, a ragù matto, whose flavors evoke meat that is not there.
My grandmother inherited several recipes from rural tradition and passed them on to me.
Above all, the legume ragù and parsley sauce, which originally came from leftover pasta and beans, in the Imola area where I was born and raised, took on a life of its own, becoming an original recipe of the region.