The Making Of An Italian Style Ragout

Greetings Food Fans!

 Today we delve into the making of a close to real Italian Ragout

I will not pretend understand the technique of making a true Italian ragout. But having eaten our share of them during our recent trip, I will tell you they all have the as a base the flavor of long simmered, slow cooked meat. Further south there may be more tomatoes in them whereas in a place like Bologna the tomato might be barely recognizable. But ragout is all about the meat and meat flavor

 Quite by accident a couple of years ago I had made a sauce trying to use up a ton of left over pieces of roasted meat and bones which I cooked with tomatoes low and slow and came up with a very tasty, meaty sauce. I hadn't replicated it since. But with the growing and smoking  done this last summer I had an idea.

All through the summer growing and smoking season I collected. I collected tomato pulp and dried tomatoes. I collected every bone and piece of skin from the pork shoulders, turkey and chicken that I smoked. And I put the all in the freezer with purpose...a single purpose in mind...to use them to make a spectacular ragout.

Behold the harvest

On your left is a sample (not complete) of all the bones and skin I had secured. On the right are bags and bags of tomato pulp. In the metal bowl is re-hydrating dried tomatoes.

Please ignore that glass of white liquid. That certainly could not be any kind of white alcohol being consumed by the chef at 10 AM.

A base of aromatics - bell pepper, celery, carrots, onion and garlic

Nothing exotic at all in the cooking department

Saute the aromatics with some dried crushed red pepper

Add the tomato products (the re-hydrated ones broken down with the immersion blender)

Bring to a simmer

Add all the freaking meat product, easily equal to the tomato product in volume and weight

Add some water as necessary so not too thick

Salt and pepper - no other herbs or spices used

Cook the entire thing for about four hours over low heat

Forget that when you cook down poultry carcasses that all the small bones fall apart leaving your ragout filled with them. AND they cannot be strained out because you will lose all your meat, tomatoes and aromatics

Wonder why you didn't put the bones and meat into some cheese cloth

Spend two hours then next day going through the entire chilled massive pot by hand to extract all the freaking small bones

Ah! But at the end you are rewarded

At the rate that Wife and I consume, this is probably two years worth of ragout!!!!

Tasting note: I made a baked pasta dish with the ragout on Tuesday

It was freaking awesome!

(He says with the modesty that de-I is known for)

 

SPECIAL ADDED FEATURE!

SMOKED MEAT CRACKLINGS

 

I had one whole bag of nothing but fatty skin from birds and pork shoulder. I didn't want all that fat in the sauce so I cut it all into pieces and put it into a skillet

Twenty minutes later

Yummy crispy cracklings

If you happen to be stopping in Albuquerque anytime this year, let me know. For I will tell you that this ragout combined with homemade pasta sheets makes an incredible lasagna which I will gladly make for you.

Ciao!

 

Italia 2017 - The Great Post Trip Analysis

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This was our 7^th long trip – trips of 6 weeks or more – since my official transition from full-time work and my discovery of a passion for travel of this nature. With each of the previous 6 trips, I felt there was a deep, important learning related to the travel process – the kind of travel we wanted to do, the experiences that really nourished our soul and those that didn’t, the realizations of the restrictions our aged bodies and minds were going to impose on us, the realistic amount of time we should be gone, how to manage our home and remaining business, how best to deal with transitioning over many time zones with the least ill effect, how to transition from our living at home state to our travel state and back, etc.

I feel this trip was much more a harvesting of that learning rather than the exposition of some deep new learning. We successfully integrated the learning from the trip last spring to Asia. Even though we were predominately in one country, we moved frequently and covered a number of different, very different regions. The addition of Albania was a welcome diversion into the vast, non-wealthy world that we get so much out of. We mixed our modes of transportation so no one got on our nerves. The length seemed just right; long enough for the real travel experience feeling but not so long that you felt you wish you were home with weeks to go. We still pushed ourselves hard but seemed to have enough restraint that it did not seem to be over the top or more than we could handle.

Yet to say that there was no learning on this trip would be totally wrong. I would say that the learning was more in the positive vein. More of “Oh yes, this is good and we should plan to do more of this.” Or “That wasn’t as great as it could be but if we changed it thus, it could really be good.”

So let’s run down some of the general impressions of the trip and then get into the overall analysis.(Impressions in no specific order of occurrence or importance)

·      We’ve traveled enough in Italy that there was little in the way of adjustment when we arrived which was actually a bit of a weird feeling.

·      Italian food is so good it is hard to get a bad meal. You almost have to work at it. I mean even when we were in Rome and were in the most touristy sections, we kept having excellent food. The first couple of weeks, I had posts focusing just on food. By the end of our time, good eating was so normal that I just fit them into the daily posts.

·      And on the subject of food in Italy, can I just say there may be nothing more sublime than the pasta there. While on the same note, with one exception, I was not that impressed with the pizza – think there is plenty of good pizza at home and that we ourselves make pretty damn good pizza.

·      Even though we’ve been to Italy, this was the first time we really focused on art and the churches. I was quite taken by just how different the churches are from styles one sees in the rest of Western Europe with their extensive internal art work, baptisteries, etc.

·      And really, do you think there is some final upper limit on the number of churches, cathedrals, basilicas, mosques, temples that Wife and I are willing to visit? All evidence points to there being none.

·      The whole ‘learning’ aspect of our travel is becoming more and more important. By that I mean all types of things we are learning. On this trip I had a major breakthrough in my appreciation of art and a similar one on the use of my camera and the photographs I was taking. Also learning all about Albania and the Salento was very expanding.

·      My breakthrough with photography has put my interests more in line with Wife’s and led to Wife and I starting to really look forward to our times when we can just wander a place looking for things photographable.

·      Can anyone tell me why so many Renaissance paintings have a woman with a single breast exposed?

·      I continue to be amazed by Wife’s ability to communicate with people of other languages even though she speaks not a word of their language. There were three occasions – buying crackers at a store, laundry detergent at another, and getting the laundromat to work – where with no inhibition whatsoever she began talking with women – she in English, they in Italian – and somehow whatever needed to be figured out was figured out. Amazing!

·      Favorites of the trip? It is so hard but I think I would say Ravenna (OMG!) Parma Duomo, Siena Duomo, and the little church in the Salento with the Byzantine paintings.

·      Finally experiences, those small moments where you meet people and have these incredible interactions. My favorites from this trip are:

o   The Japanese woman from Yokohama who wanted me to take her picture and we chatted about the Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum

o   The lawyer in Bologna who got us into the yard of the famous poet

o   The bar owner in Albania with the brother in New York

o   The miracle of the local boys smiles lighting up at our guide’s home town in Albania

o   Our interaction with the good looking host at a Firenze bar who was Albanian and all excited about our trip to Albania

o   The long conversation we had with our Firenze photo workshop guide and our fellow participant who was from Canada and seeing another side to Canada

o   Meeting the three women in Burtrint who came from the Salento and were astonished that we had been there just the week before.

Sigh, so many cool little things that spice up the travel experience.

So there you have it. Less cosmic revelations, more organic growing into our command and appreciation of our travel experience.

Post Travel Depression Syndrome

As it is the day before Thanksgiving, I will start by saying that despite what I write here, I am unbelievably grateful for all that I have in life and the opportunity to do what I do. So take all below with a grain of salt...maybe a shaker of salt.

I'm sure I've written these words before, but coming home after one of trips is like you've been involved with this incredibly intense competition involving full focus and effort and then the competition is over. Our days when we travel are so full! There is no routine. Each day you are planning what you will do and how you will do it. No brain dead get in the car and drive to some appointment using the same roads you've used a thousand times before. Eating, shopping, transport all become exercises. At home they are routine. And we go out of our way to ensure we are in that state. We purposely limit how long we stay any one place because the excitement is in the discovery.

We are usually physically very tired and it doesn't end with the days activities because once we are wherever home is that night, we need to look at all our pictures and try to get a blog post up. Yes, yes, yes, we don't have to do that. But we LOVE doing it.

So each day is filled to the brim with activity.  Once home, there is nowhere near that requirement of mental focus. Wife truly loves her home routine and misses it when we travel. So she is always much happier to be home. For me it is transition that is more difficult. But the more travel we do, the easier it becomes. I think this is because I am confident that I will be off traveling again.

Italia 2017 - Homeward Bound

We're doing our now time tested method of breaking our return trip into two segments. Flew from Amsterdam to Chicago today. The flight was completely uneventful. United has made this big to do about their 'new' Polaris brand business and first class service. We didn't see any difference in the seats but I have to say the quality of the food was up substantially.

We napped on the plane ride and took a second nap in our hotel. So hopefully we will be staying up until normal go to sleep time. Then tomorrow morning we will be flying back to Albuquerque and will be back around Noon time. I will be going through my posts tonight and coming up with the post-trip retrospective and analysis.

Italia 2017 - Finale in Amsterdam

It has become somewhat of a tradition in our European trips to finish up visiting the #3 family in Amsterdam. As we got together with them in Umbria in October we had in our early planning decided to not go to Amsterdam but return directly from Rome. However, for some unknown reason, the airline I have permanent status on, United, only has seasonal flights out of Rome directly to the US hubs. That meant I was going to have to fly to another European city to get the routing home I wanted. And to do it with the timing I wanted it meant either getting up terribly early to account for the extra flight or going to the other city and staying overnight. Once I decided that getting up super early was not a good idea for us and going to another city the night before was the preferred option, going to Amsterdam where we could see family and not have to pick up another hotel was the attractive option.

If you've followed the blog for any period of time, you are more than aware that our visits to Amsterdam include a repertoire of mandatory required street food along with an equally mandatory number of grandchildren pictures. Despite cold weather, we threw ourselves into it.

We were in full grandparenting mode. You may remember from our day with 3.1 and 3.2 and the massively popular stories made surrounding the picture I took of 3.2 with an orange in her mouth, there was desire to do something similar today.

We are in Amsterdam during a short period of time when olliebollen - fried dough with powdered sugar - is available.

3.2 announces that olliebollen and some other breakfast cake will be served

The announcement is greeted enthusiastically

Coffee is brewed

However, it is important to guard one's olliebollen from the inevitable predators that will seek it out

"Grandpa, are you ready for the fun to start?"

What could be more fun than pictures of orange in the mount?

Olliebollen in the mouth of course. 

But wait there is more!

I would like to point out that certain children, son-in-law, and spouse feel that I may not be the best influence on said grandchildren. 

Meanwhile 3.1 was plotting out our strategy for further street food eatery.

You will recognize our destination from prior posts

YES, it is Frites

It is hard to get into the 'food in the mouth' when it is cold

Wife looks like she's taking a picture

She's actually covering the bare spot on her face with her camera from the wind

Displeasure was shown to certain grandparents enabling grandchildren 

They were told they could eat ater with a fork

I was able to avoid his prohibition and earn some herring

And one can't forget the best doner kebab we've had outside of Turkey (though I hear Berlin is even better)

Our time with our family is too short

We will be winging our way back to the US tomorrow

A seagull contemplates our departing Europe yet again.

Italia 2017 - Roma Antica, Finding the Truth About the Arena

On our last day in Rome we were totally immersed into Ancient Rome. Going to the Coliseum is considered another of those 'A' list items when visiting Rome and as with the Vatican one is advised to use a tour as tours have priority access for entry and you can avoid the long lines. And as a bona fide Roman history nut, I convinced Wife we should do a tour that included both the Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum.

Ah, the Arena, the Coliseum

It is a commonly thought that the games of  the Coliseum were focused on such things as gladiator fights and fighting of wild animals or letting prisoners be killed by animals. In fact recent scholarship has found that ancient Rome much like its modern rendition was overrun with tourists from over the Empire. To get this plague of tourists under control, the Emperors solutions was having various tour groups duel with each other in the Coliseum. Our tour was designed to give us this very experience in real life

We fight the masses to get to into the arena

Our tour guide shows us

"There. You will achieve glory for our tour company and defeat the groups from Korea and China today

We will have a mock up of the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel. See we are putting out the floor as we speak.

Including trap doors for the organizers might have a group from cruise ship pop up without notice

The Leaders of the city will watch you with interest from there

And the crowd will cheer you on as you force yourself over the mangled bodies of other tour groups that try to get in your way!

The exploits of the great ancient tour groups victories in the arena were honored by massive triumphal arches

Scenes of these victories were carved on the triumphal arches

The Victory of the Celtic chariot tour over the Illyrian cruise shippers

The Greek philosopher tour's mastery of the Egyptian temple tour

The controversial victory of the Judean food tourists over the Dacian art tour 

(Evidently the use of the Menorah to push the other group out of the way was considered to be a questionable tactic)

There is something something about being surrounded the magnitude of these ruins, of a city that at its peak was over a million in population two thousand years ago that makes one contemplative

A tour guide contemplates the glory that was Rome

A seagull contemplates what monument it will poop upon

After the Colosseum we went up to the Palatine Hill and then into the Forum

The ruins of Imperial Palaces don't give one a feel of what was really there and as Wife has said, "There are only so many pictures of broken buildings one can post"

On the other hand, when you look at the Forum, center of civic life for hundreds of years in Rome, from above, you really can I think imagine just what an incredible city Rome was in its ancient time.

 Here are a building that have the original bronze doors and one that has porphyry pillars

And a temple that had a church built inside it

One last historical note

This is the Via Sacra, the main road running through the Roman Forum and according to our guide it is the original

Any major personage on ever read about in Roman history probably stepped on this very path

Kind of gives me a sense of awe of the scope and breath of history

 

And one last gastronomic experience

We had our last meal at a restaurant right next to our apartment

Sigh, one last wonderful pasta carbonara

A last grilled fish

And one more wonderful osso bucco 

All with a half liter of house wine

I will miss eating in Italy so much