The Butcher's Sauce - Random Recipes

 

 

an ode to orange ... 

 

What's at 'the back of  beyond' in your cupboard  (or freezer, in my case) ? This month's Random Recipe challenge was to reach into the back of your pantry and bring out a box, can, bag, packet, what ever! Next, go to a cookbook and find a recipe that uses that 'forgotten' ingredient. Well, that's clever, Dom!

We all have more than one 'forgotten' something in the back of our cupboards! I,  however, needed to start cleaning out the freezer compartment of the refrigerator, so I reached deep and shuffled around until I grabbed a baggy of rock hard mystery meat - it turned out to be a combo bag of ground pork and ground beef - a sure sign that it was leftovers from making a tourtiere or meatballs.

 

 

 

My next move was to leaf through Michele Scicilone's book The Italian Slow Cooker until I found a sauce called The Butcher's Sauce. Michele calls this sauce a use-it-up recipe, as it has three types of meat, tomato paste, chopped tomatoes, white wine, and the classic carrots, onions, celery trio of flavour builders. For me, it really turned into a clean out the fridge meal, as I had two containers of tomato product - sauce and tomatoes, half a can of tomato paste, and the last of some Sauvignon blanc that needed to be used up. Huzzah, Dom! Thanks for helping a real pack rat start to lighten the load in the freezer and fridge!

 

After six hours of low simmering, we had the most wonderful tomato sauce that we used to top some rigatoni pasta ... a side of frizzled kale with garlic and red pepper flakes, a crusty bread, and a glass of wine made for an easy dinner. Bravo, Random Recipes! I can hardly wait to see what others have done with their 'forgotten ingredients' !

... leftevers for the lunch guests who will never know that they're eating 'two days ago' ... until now ... ooops!

Ten cups of Butcher's Sauce goes a long way. We might have frozen it, but why bother when it warms perfectly for lunch a couple days later? Besides, frozen, it might be shoved to the back of the freezer again and that would never do!

The Butcher’s Sauce

a Michele Scicolone recipe

 

Ingredients:

 

1 large onion, chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped
2 medium carrots, peeled and chopped
2 large cloves garlic, minced
3 tbsp. olive oil
½ lb. ground beef
½ lb. ground pork
½ lb. ground lamb
2 generous tbsp. tomato paste
Kosher salt and black pepper, to taste
½ c. dry white wine
2 – 28 oz. cans peeled tomatoes packed in tomato puree

 

This recipe may be made on stovetop or in the slow cooker. Stove top preparation requires a simmering plate for your sauce pot ... otherwise, the sauce will tend to stick as getting a low enough simmer is difficult. You'll have to stir the pot more frequently anyway. Just sayin' ...

If you have a crockpot with no 'sear' settings, do the initial fry-up of vegetables and meats on the stove in a deep big fry pan, then scrape everything into the crockpot and add the tomatoes. Proceed with Step 4.

 

1. To begin, set the slow cooker on a sear setting at 350 °F. When it has begun to warm up, add the olive oil.
2. When the sear temp has been reached, add the onions, celery, and carrots and cook until the onions are becoming golden and translucent.
3. Add the meats in small amounts, crumbling into small lumps. Brown all the meat and then add the tomato paste and dry white wine, stirring to make the beginnings of a sauce and incorporate the tomato paste.
4. Cover the slow cooker pot and set the cooker for ‘High’ and the timer for 4 hours.
5. When the sauce begins to simmer, remove the cover and add the cans of tomatoes, crushing each tomato in your fist and adding the puree over all. Give everything a stir and replace the cover.
6. Let the sauce simmer to a really thick sauce. Skim some of the fat from the surface of the sauce and correct the salt and pepper seasoning before you serve it over a big shaped pasta – rigatoni or penne work well.

Makes about 10 cups of sauce