top of page

tagliatelle al ragù nero

tagliatelle in black ragù

There’s a tradition in parts of Tuscany to make hearty, rich ragù with various cuts of offal, as well as minced meat. It's a style of cooking ragù that goes right back to the very first published recipes for meat ragù in the 19th century, which would often include offal like chicken livers. In fact, kidneys, heart and liver from a variety of animals are common in Tuscan Ragù Nero, but in this version I’ve simply tweaked my standard recipe for ragù, and added a couple of small chicken livers at the meat stage, then served the pasta with crumbled, grilled British black pudding on the top.


If you opt to add black pudding too, make your ragù ever so slighly more runny than you might normally serve it, as the black pudding will tend to absorb moisture from the ragù. It needs to be ONLY SLIGHTLY damper than usual; you don’t want to see pools of tomato juice on the plate!

WHAT YOU'LL NEED TO DO
(scroll down for the full method)

  • chop the vegetables

  • prepare the other ingredients

  • fry the soffritto

  • fry the meat

  • add meat to sauce, simmer

  • allow time to pass

  • allow the ragù to rest

  • add milk and butter

  • boil the pasta

  • grill the black pudding

  • combine sauce and pasta

  • plate with black pudding on top

tagliatelle in black ragù

INGREDIENTS

FOR FOUR PEOPLE

  • 500g 5% fat beef mince

  • (or 250g pork + 250g beef mince)

  • 1 stick celery

  • 2 small carrots

  • 2 small onions

  • 1-2 chicken livers (optional)

  • 4 large slices of black pudding

  • 1 small clove garlic

  • 1 chicken stock cube

  • 800g tomato polpa

  • nutmeg

  • fresh basil

  • milk

  • butter

  • black pepper

  • white wine


PASTA

400g tagliatelle


MANTECATURA (?)

none


PandM_logo_section_divider.png

METHOD

As with the recipe for meat ragù, chop the garlic, onion, celery and carrots reasonably finely - I normally dice everything by hand to about 5mm cubed size or thereabouts. This is what you'll see referred to as the 'soffritto', which is just a mix of those vegetables, lightly fried in EVO for around 15 mins, on a low heat. Don't colour or burn the vegetables at all.


While the soffritto is going I normally dry fry the meat and the finely chopped chicken livers, sometimes with a splash of EVO, in a separate pan. A separate pan because once it's all begun to change colour I turn the heat up briefly, add a splash of wine, and then continue cooking until it evaporates, or until you can't smell the wine strongly anymore. Then I add the meat to the vegetables, stir and cook together for a few minutes, then add the polpa, and bring back to a simmer. At this point you can crumble the stock cube into the sauce and throw in half a dozen fresh basil leaves.


After 10 minutes or so of simmering, when the cube has melted, check for seasoning and add salt / ground black pepper and freshly ground nutmeg. I like to have an obvious hint of nutmeg as it's more of a Tuscan hallmark than in other regions of Italy. Funnily enough, this is one ingredient that my mother DIDN'T always add to her own ragùs. I've no idea why, but I have a suspicion that my father wasn't much of a fan of nutmeg...


Let the ragù continue to cook gently, maybe adding some extra water if it starts to dry up too much, for anything from 60-120 mins. You may have heard of some people cooking ragù for ridiculously long periods of time like 6-8 hours.... but I'm yet to be convinced that you need more than 1.5 - 2.5 hrs to create a perfectly acceptable sauce with meat.

About 5 minutes before the ragù is cooked, grill the black pudding slices and then crumble them and set them aside. When the flavours of the ragù are starting to taste good for you, boil and cook the pasta. When the pasta goes in, I normally turn the heat off the sauce and let it rest. It's also the moment I add a tablespoon or two (or to taste) of butter and a splash of milk. It's a throwback to making traditional BOLOGNESE ragù and it helps to (a) temper the acidity and sharpness of the tomatoes and (b) create a more indulgent sauce.


When the pasta is done to your liking, place four large serving spoons of ragù in a warmed pasta wok and then add the boiled pasta directly to that, with possibly a ladle of cooking water too, before combining for a maximum of a minute or so. Serve immediately with freshly grated parmesan/ pecorino, more ground black pepper and crumbled black pudding on the top of each portion.

NUTRITION per serving

  • KCAL: 630

  • Fat (g): 21.1

  • Sat Fat (g): 10

  • Carb (g): 57.1

  • Sug (g): 11

  • Fibre(g): 3.7

  • Prot (g): 43.7

  • Salt (g): 2.31

bottom of page