Google Ragu with Gnocchi
About three weeks ago I had lunch at Goog.. and you know the rule when you eat at one of their restaurants: try a small bite of everything they make. It's organic deliciousness. I had a little of the meat ragu and potato gnocchi.. not something I eat a lot of generally .. but it was divine on a cold, wintery day. I mean.. i thought about it for two days after.. it was perfection.
So I decided to reverse engineer it.
I started with a recipe first, which I didn't like. Too tomato-y and not at all creamy, it just didn't have what the Google Ragu had. So then I made this recipe, from Caterina Schenardi who is Daniele Boldrini's mother, owner of Gradisca in Manhattan, where his mother makes the pasta behind glass at the front area. Then I modified it to be like what I remembered... and it came out just like the Google Ragu.
Google Ragu
INGREDIENTS
1.5 pounds ground shoulder or leg of lamb
1.5 pounds ground grass-fed beef chuck roast
(I purchased the roasts, organic, which were about $4 a pound, and had them grind them twice, which is normal for a lot of butchers and Whole Foods)
5-6 sprigs rosemary, rinsed
1 tablespoon mixed whole black, pink and white peppercorns
8 cloves organic garlic, peeled
4 cups Italian red wine (I used a barbaresco that is about 7 years old.. from trader joes)
3 tablespoons org. extra virgin olive oil
10oz brown mushrooms finely chopped
2 medium or 3 skinny organic carrots
3 medium organic celery stalks
1 huge organic yellow onion or 2 mediums
(puree these three together in a food processor or grinder)
1 cup canned organic diced tomatoes with liquid
1 6oz organic tomato paste
3 bay leaves
3 cups organic mushroom stock and beef stock (i used half and half "better than bouillon" concentrate to make the stock: 3c water, heated, mixed with 1.5 teasp each of beef and mushroom bouillons)
1.5 cups whole organic milk
Tagliatelle, paparadelle, gnocchi or other pasta, for serving
METHOD:
Mix the two meats together. Put 3 stems of rosemary in the bottom of a stainless or glass bowl, spread out, along with 4 garlic cloves and half the peppercorns. Add a little of the wine, and set in the meat, then shove the remaining garlic into the meat mix, lay the remaining rosemary and pepper corns on top. Then pour in wine to cover, probably about 2 cups of the bottle.. and place covered in the fridge overnight. I use plastic wrap and lay it into the wine atop the meat and rosemary, and then place a rubber band around the bowl at the top, which prevents spills and keeps it fresh.
Next day: finely mince the onion, carrot and celery in a food processor or grinder. Heat oil in a 5Q or larger heavy pot. When oil sizzles, toss in the onion mixture, and saute until the liquid is cooked out, stirring well. Add mushrooms and cook again until the liquid is out, stirring well.
NOTE: do not add salt or pepper, until later, to taste.
Remove and discard rosemary from meat, chop finely the garlic cloves, and pull out peppercorns if you don't like having them whole in the ragu. Add the meat, minced garlic (and peppercorns if you like that), and continue to saute on low heat, again stirring well, until all meat is browned. Continue to stir to keep it from burning until the juices and wine are cooked out. Spoon off any fat from the meat. I did this and had a little juice at the bottom of my fat container, which I added back in later. The meat fat was then discarded. Add tomatoes and tomato paste. Add the rest of the wine in the bottle, and again, stir the meat well until the wine cooks out. Then add half the stock (the organic mushroom broth I use is salty, so I added no salt at all to this.. however, after adding the broth, taste and season with salt and pepper as needed).
Cook the ragu down to where there isn't much liquid in the meat. Add the other half of the broth and repeat until the liquid is cooked down again. This should take about an hour to saute and simmer through the steps. Then add the milk, simmer and fold the mixture for about 15 minutes. Taste for salt and pepper but if your broth is salted and you leave in the pepper corns, you won't need any at all.
You can then turn off the pot, let it cool, cover and put it in the fridge until you are near serving time. I like to leave the ragu a day before we eat it to let the flavors meld. Then reheat, prepare pasta or gnocchi and spoon over the pasta as desired. I also like adding shredded parma over the top of the hot ragu and gnocchi, but a little goes a long way. You don't need much.
I made gnocchi too, but that recipe will have to wait...
Enjoy!