long-distance Calabrian pork ragù
You could say any dish made to be shared with a loved one is “made with love,” but that’s not quite it. A dish “made with love” has a specific, special power: to conjure a loved one’s presence in your kitchen when you need them most. In a relationship 1400 miles apart, I didn’t choose to burn one of our precious few days together making this ragú because I thought we’d enjoy it in the moment, or because I thought it would accurately express how I was feeling when words couldn’t. I made it specifically because I intended to leave a little of myself behind.
This dish comes from my grandfather’s Calabrese heritage, with all the intensity, depth, and personality that runs in three generations of my family. It features not one or two but THREE kinds of pork—pancetta, shoulder roast, and ground—supplemented by a heroic quantity of garlic, a big spike of dry white wine, and, of course, crushed hot Calabrian chili peppers. But there’s also a homey gentleness about it, slow-simmered in a tomato base and mellowed with a knob of butter towards the end. It makes any kitchen smell as if family is in the other room, whether you have Italian family or not.
It’s common in Italian culture to connect the amount of time spent with the amount of care given. Working over a stove all day is a love language because it requires you not only to give yourself physically, but to apply the value of your time to someone else’s life that you could’ve applied to your own. Every text message I get from my mom on Sauce Day about how long it’s taking reminds me just how deep this runs.
killing time while ragú does its thing
the ragú for a friend, 2019
This dish is certainly a labor of love in that it spends hours on the stove, though all the actual work is done in the first 30 minutes. But a long-distance relationship will give you a heightened awareness of how much every one of those hours, even passively spent, truly counts. With such little time, every choice in how that time is used has to be intentional, or you start to fear it’s being wasted. But it’s the simple rituals that fill up the time slots of “regular life,” ones that get taken for granted so easily, where relationships build the depth that allows them to endure. For us, just the act of going to the grocery store together and picking a pasta shape and choosing a wine together was special. We didn’t have a regular life to take for granted.
After we had dinner, I packaged the leftovers, saving some ragú in the fridge for him to reheat that week. But I also quietly stashed one deep in the freezer, to be defrosted for needed comfort in some lonely future moment. Deep down, I think I knew this was my last visit. It was March 1st, 2020.
Over the years I’ve made this ragú for friends in their homes, at dinner parties, driven it two hours frozen in a deli container strapped in the front seat of my car. But only recently did I remake it again in my own house: this time, for the person I once left it for, in a kitchen that now belongs to both of us.
When could you make this ragú? Maybe to bring a relationship closer. Maybe to lend a hand to someone who can’t admit they need one. Maybe when you are unsure of how to best be there for someone, but are sure they need you. Whenever it is, I know that when you choose to make it, yours will have the same power that I hoped mine would: to show the one you love that you’ll go the distance, no matter what it takes.
RECIPE
Inspired by my grandfather’s heritage, this Calabrian regional ragú features three kinds of pork—ground pork, pork shoulder, and pancetta—slow-braised for hours with wine, tomato, chiles, and all your best intentions.
Effortful time: 30 minutes
Total time: 3-5 hours, all braising
Makes enough for 1 1/2 lbs. of pasta; freeze whatever you don’t use
YOU NEED
4 oz pancetta, cubed
1 lb pork shoulder, trimmed of excess fat, cut into 1" cubes
1 lb ground pork
1 tsp. olive oil
1 small shallot, finely diced
1 carrot, finely diced
1 stalk celery, finely diced
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp. tomato paste (I use double-concentrated)
1 tsp. chopped Calabrian chili peppers (these are typically sold in a jar in oil near the olives; if you can’t find these, try 1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper)
3/4 cup white wine
28 oz. can tomato puree
1 tsp. dried parsley
1/4 tsp. salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup water, plus additional water as needed (see note if using an Instant Pot)
2 tbsp. butter
1/2 cup grated parmigiano reggiano or pecorino romano, plus more for serving
Pasta of your choice, I like big tubes—paccheri, rigatoni, calamarata
MAKE IT
For traditional stovetop
Get prepped. Start with your meats: trim and cube your pork shoulder, and cube your pancetta (I like to have my butcher do the pork and buy the pancetta already cubed). Dice your shallot, celery stalk, and carrot and set aside. Mince your 6 cloves of garlic, open your tomatoes, figure out how to puncture the tomato paste tube. Create a little cup with the Calabrian chiles (or chili flakes) and the tbsp. of tomato paste. Doing this up front helps me focus on the assembly.
Cook the pancetta. Heat a large, heavy skillet or Dutch oven (I used a 3.5 qt. braiser for this) over medium-high heat. Add the 4 oz. cubed pancetta and brown, then lower the heat and slowly render it in its own fat until lightly crisped, approximately 8 minutes. Remove the pancetta with slotted spoon and put into a separate bowl to hang out for a bit.
Sear the pork shoulder. Turn the heat back to medium-high. Add the cubed pork shoulder pieces to the remaining pancetta fat, salt and pepper them right in the pan and brown on all sides, about 10 min total. Depending on your pot’s size, you may have to work in batches, because the cubes won't brown if they're touching—but in a pan with a larger surface area, this won’t be necessary. Once deeply browned, move these to the pancetta bowl.
Brown the ground pork. Add the ground pork to the remaining pan fat (along with a pinch of salt) and cook, breaking it up with a spatula until nicely browned and no pink remains, about 6-8 minutes. Then add this to your meat bowl.
Build the sauce base. Turn the heat to medium-low. Pour the 1 tsp. olive oil and swirl together with any residual pan fat. Add the celery, carrots, and shallot and cook, stirring often, until soft and beginning to caramelize, about 5 min. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant and softened, about 30 more seconds. Add the tbsp. of tomato paste and tsp. of Calabrian chiles (or chili flakes if substituting) and cook 30 seconds more, crushing the tomato paste into the oil so it begins to lightly caramelize.
Create the sauce. Deglaze with 3/4 cup white wine, scraping up any brown bits. Reduce for two minutes, then add all the meat back to the pan. Pour over the tomato puree and stir in the salt, pepper, and parsley, and bring to a boil for one minute. Add the 1/2 cup of water, then lower the heat to a slow, chill simmer.
Simmer the sauce. You've got a lot of time here — as much as you feel like, as long as it's at least 2 1/2 hours (I almost always do closer to 4; it’s a nice weekend afternoon project). But while you can't overcook it, you CAN toughen it by boiling it, so stir it every so often and try not to let it bubble too aggressively at any point.
Mellow the sauce. 2 hours into the cook time, add the butter and stir well.
Shred the meat. Stab a wide, sturdy spatula through the sauce, chopping as you go to shred any pork that hasn't fallen apart on its own. Put on water for pasta.
Finish the sauce. In the last few moments of pasta cook time, stir in the cheese into to the sauce, which will cut the acidity and mellow the spice. Taste your sauce after this and decide if you need more salt.
Combine pasta with the sauce. Reserving some pasta water, drain your pasta and put back in its pan. Ladle as much sauce as you'd like to serve and stir together with splashes of pasta water as needed. Cook for about 1 more minute to let everything meld together.
Serve it up. With extra cheese, of course.
For the Instant Pot:
Follow steps 1-6 using the Sauté function (medium) on your pot. Do NOT add the water. Cook on high pressure for 1 hour, 15 minutes and allow for at least 20 minutes of natural release before depressurizing. Flip to Keep Warm, shred the meat, then stir in the butter and cheese and allow to combine completely before tossing with hot pasta on the stove.