bigoli al ragù di anatra
bigoli in duck ragù
Chicken isn’t a popular choice as a pasta sauce ingredient in Italy, partly because most Italians (from Italy, not the other side of the Atlantic!) have an innate aversion to combining chicken and tomato flavours, but mostly because chicken tends to dry up and not survive the longer cookings needed for a ragù. Duck, on the other hand, being a much fattier poultry option which also has the added bonus of looking more reassuringly like red meat, is in fact an extremely popular ingredient in ragù in the north east of Italy. It’s often combined with bigoli, tagliatelle, pappardelle, just like many other meat ragùs of northern and central Italy.
Bigoli (bèe-gohlee) are the pici of the Veneto region. They’re so similar, at least in their commercial dry form, that the Pasta Morelli pici and bigoli products, for example, seem practically identical. If you can’t find bigoli or pici, you could also use thicker spaghetti, spaghettoini or pappardelle.
As you might expect, this duck ragù is put together in a very similar way to other recipes for ragù, however it has a few reasonably unique and unexpected ingredients and flavours.
WHAT YOU'LL NEED TO DO
(scroll down for the full method)
• marinade duck (2 hrs, optional)
• prepare the veg
• fry the soffritto, duck
• simmer (2 hrs)
• boil the pasta
• combine sauce and pasta, serve
bigoli in duck ragù
INGREDIENTS
FOR FOUR PEOPLE
• 500g (17.5oz) duck
• 2 celery sticks
• 1 medium carrot
• 2 small onions
• 1 chicken stock cube
• 1 large garlic clove
• white wine to taste
• juniper berries
• 1-2 cloves
• plain (dark) chocolate
• 1 tblsp tomato concentrate
PASTA
• 400g dry bigoli / pici
/spaghettoni / pappardelle
MANTECATURA
• none
METHOD
I’ve seen recipes for duck ragù which include an initial marinade for the meat, supposedly to imprive tenderness and texture. I’ve tried both with and without a marinade and haven’t noticed a great difference. If you’d like to try it, mix 50:50 white wine vinegar and water, enough to cover the meat cut into chunks, and leave it in the fridge for a couple of hours. When you’re ready to cook, begin with finely chopped soffritto of onion, carrots, celery; after a minute or so adding garlic and sweating with a little water until the onions are transluscent and the carrots have almost lost their crunch.
There are two way of cooking the duck. Either cut the whole duck into quarters and then pull the meat off the bones to make a sauce, or, as I did when I only had access to duck breasts, chop the meat into small chunks (see left).
I fried the duck breasts in chunks in a separate pan in EVO. Add a splash of wine and allow it to burn off. Transfer the meat to the saucepan with the vegetables and and a few cups of chicken stock and the tomato concentrate. Throw in a couple of cloves and juniper berries, but don’t over the spices. Bring the sauce to a low simmer and keep tasting and adding more liquid (just water if it begins to get too salty) as it simmers. Total simming time should be around 2 hours.
During the final half hour or so of cooking, add a few squares of plain/dark choclate to the ragù. Allow it to melt and stir it through the sauce. It will provide an extra, subtle layer of flavour.
Next, remove the juniper berries and cloves - it may take a while to find them! After 5 about minutes, take the ragù off the heat and allow it to rest as you boil and cook the pasta.
Add some ragù and a tiny amount of pasta cooking water to a tossing pan and transfer the cooked pasta to the sauce. Toss to combine, adding small amounts of extra sauce and/or tiny amounts of cooking water to taste until you’re happy.
Plate and serve. (When I cooked this ragù on the right I thought the chocolate worked so well that I added an additional extra sprinkling when I plated!)
NUTRITION per serving
KCAL: 712
Fat (g): 16.1
Sat Fat (g): 5.5
Carb (g): 81.8
Sug (g): 10.5
Fibre(g): 7.2
Prot (g): 46.7
Salt (g): 4.38
Nutritional information is provided as an indication only of approximate values for the recipe on this page. You should make your own calculations if you have specific dietry requirements or are required to follow a strict calorie-controlled diet.
