Sugo alla Genovese | The Foodie Pilgrim

By John, 9 July, 2024

Region

Description

"Sugo Genovese" Despite its name proclaiming a Genoese origin, this delicious Neapolitan pasta sauce, a cousin of the French soubise onion sauce, is unknown in Genoa today. It is thought to have been brought to Naples by sailors from Genoa long ago, and to have survived in the south long after it faded into obscurity in the north.

Now Sugo alla Genovese borders on a religion in Naples, where countless households make it every Sunday with the traditional local dried pasta from Gragnano, bought long and broken into serving-size lengths just before boiling it, a job often performed with help from the children of the household. The sauce cooks all day, and when it's done the onions are sweet and amazing.

"break before cooking" This is not a vegetarian recipe. A beef roast cooks with the onions, flavoring them, but it is not served in the sauce or with the pasta at all. In Italy it's traditional to have a simple pasta course before a main course, the primo before the larger secondo. At a fine dinner, you would expect a small dish of pasta with one of the many wonderful sauces (ragu, sugo, salsa) invented for the purpose. A heaping plate of spaghetti is what you eat when you can't afford the secondo course.

The photo to the right is from an artisan pasta shop in Gragnano. Candela is a long tube-like pasta shape about twice as wide as bucatini. As you can see in the photo, Mr. Somma wants tourists to know that this particular shape is to be broken into shorter lengths for cooking. It's in English because the Italians already know this.

Yield

6 Servings

Preparation time

10 minutes

Cooking time

4 hours

Total time

4 hours, 10 minutes

Ingredients

3 3⁄10 lb Vidalia Onion (or other sweet onions)

1 Celery rib

1 Carrot

3 T Olive oil

1 3⁄10 lb Beef Eye of Round (Called girello in most of Italy, but magatello in Milan.)

3 Bay Leaf

1 bn Parsley, Flat-Leaf (tied with a string)

10 oz Dry White Wine

12 oz Long Dried Pasta (Ziti tagliati or another long-tube kind that must be broken is traditional)

Instructions

With a food processor, slice the onions very thinly and set them aside in a bowl.
Clean the bowl and replace the slicing disk with the chopping blade. Chop the carrot and celery very finely.
In a large enameled Dutch oven, heat the olive oil until it shimmers. Saute the carrots and celery for 2 minutes then add the thinly sliced onions and cook for two more minutes.
While the vegetables cook, cut the beef into 5 - 6 pieces. These will be served later as the secondo course.
Push the vegetables to the sides of the pot and brown the meat on all sides. As each piece is done, put it on top of the vegetables to make room for the remaining beef.
When the beef is seared, add the bay leaves and stir it all together. Then lay the tied parsley bunch on top (the parsley will perfume the sugo and then be removed).
Cook on a very low heat, without adding water for about 2 – 3 hours until the meat is tender. Turn it every now and then to be sure it does not burn or stick. When you stir it, take out the parsley bunch and then set it back on top after stirring. When the parsley has given up what it has to give, remove it and discard it. If the sauce starts to stick, add a little of the white wine to the bottom to cool down the pot, and reduce the heat.
When the meat is finished, remove it to another plate to save for later in the dinner. Increase the heat to moderate and add the white wine in a few splashes, only adding more when what's in the pot has been absorbed. Take your time and let the wine permeate all of the onion sauce.
In the end the onions will have reduced into a sweet-savory creamy sauce with little orange flecks from the carrot. Correct the seasoning with salt and add pepper if you like.
When the sauce is ready, you can break and cook the pasta al dente in plenty of salted water. Drain the pasta and mix it with 2 – 3 ladles of sugo, and use some of the sauce to dress the pasta on each dish. Reserve some of the sauce to serve with the beef in the meat course.