Salami Ragu

To celebrate the fact that its Friday, we have a new pasta recipe for you today: Salami Ragu! Ever since travelling with Ryan to Venice through Stirred Travel, we have been following @rosiemackeanpastaqueen. Rosie was one of the incredible chefs during our amazing Italian culinary adventure and the pasta pictures she posts on her Instagram account are nothing short of mouthwatering. When Rosie recently posted a recipe for Salami Ragu, I could not resist giving it a try. It was absolutely delicious! We highly recommend you follow her Instagram account for some incredible pasta recipes and, in the words of Rosie, get stuck into her Salami Ragu as soon as possible (recipe below).

Northern Italy produces the bulk of the country’s cured meats and apparently also uses them to make incredible ragus. According to Rosie, chefs would use the ends of salumi to make ragu when they could not slice it anymore as a way to economize. Her Salami Ragu is a quick bianco ragu (white – using no tomatoes) made with white wine, and cooks in only half an hour.

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Salami Ragu

Ingredients

• Glug of olive oil
• Approximately 6 ounces of salami, roughly chopped (Rosie used a sliced fennel and garlic salami and I used an 8 oz Columbus Sopressata Salame)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 white onion, finely diced
• 1/2 carrot, finely diced
• 1 stick of celery, finely diced
• Large glass of white wine
• 200 ml or 6.75 ounces of whole milk
• Fresh cracked black pepper
• Large handful of fresh parsley, finely chopped
• 2 1/2 tablespoons butter, diced and chilled
• 16 oz of long thin pasta noodles (I used bucatini, but vermicelli, spaghetti, tagliatelle, or linguine noodles would also work)

Directions

1. Heat your pan. Once pan is hot, add a glug of olive oil and your diced salami and garlic. Cook until the fat renders from the meat and you get a little color on the salami.
2. Add your diced carrot, onion, and celery to the meat in the pan. Vegetables in meat pasta sauces should be really small – its called a soffritto. Cook until vegetables for about 10 minutes and they begin to look a bit more translucent and much softer. Per Rosie, basically the carrots are a barometer for how well your vegetables are cooked. If your carrot is softening, that means the rest of your vegetables are also cooked.
3. Add white wine to the pan. Reduce for a second.
4. Add milk to the pan. According to Rosie, milk is a classic ingredient in ragu and it takes away the bitterness in a sauce. Pork and milk also love each other. Per Rosie, they are best mates. You can use stock in your ragu if you don’t want to use milk.
5. Bring the ragu back up to a boil. Then reduce to a simmer. Simmer gently for 15-20 minutes.
6. As your ragu dries out a bit, add a little pasta water.
7. Cook pasta in salted water. Rosie recommends that your pasta water be as salty as you like you soup.
8. Add another ladle of pasta water and then add parley and a few grinds of fresh black pepper. Then add pasta noodles to your ragu.
9. Toss the noodles until lathered with a nice coating of ragu. Add more pasta water if ragu is not coating noodles.
10. Add butter to pan and toss to emulsify. Once fully incorporated, plate your Salami Ragu.

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Recipe Credit: @rosiemackeanpastaqueen

Had you ever heard of Salami Ragu prior to this post? Let us know if you try out the recipe by posting a picture on Instagram and tagging us at @letswineaboutitsister. We would love to hear what you think!