Baked Italian Meat Sauce

Unless you think Chef Boyardee from a can is some fine Italian food eating, everyone has their own version of Italian meat sauce, and this dish has to be one of the most widely replicated yet variate recipes in western cuisine. And everyone will claim the same thing: "Mine is better."

Tomato based Italian meat sauce in classical Italian cooking carries a lot of names for variations on a theme. First, you have Marinara, which is a robust Italian sauce made with tomatoes, onions, and herbs, with large amounts of garlic, oregano, basil, and even chili pepper. Marinara sauce has no meat.

Then, you have sauces with meat, which are loosely referred to as a ragù. There are two general classifications of ragù: Bolognese and Neapolitan.

Bolognese recipes generally consist of ground meat, usually beef, but pork, veal, and chicken are also used. The classic recipe calls for pancetta, which is an Italian bacon, onions, carrots, celery, tomato paste, meat broth, red wine, and finished with a small amount of milk or cream. There are no herbs with the exception of bay leaf, at least not in the version of this sauce proclaimed official by the Italian region of Bologna in 1982.

Neapolitan recipes use whole meat, usually beef, veal, pork, or all three. It contains much more onion compared to Bolognese, and includes lots of herbs, mostly basil.

There are, of course, many local regional differences of all of these loosely defined recipes: white wine versus red wine; lard or butter versus olive oil and so on. Strangely, none of these Italian tomato based pasta sauces contain mushrooms. I qualify mushrooms as a non-negotiable ingredient to any worthwhile tomato based pasta sauce, and most American versions of Italian meat sauce agree with me.

In America, many of these recipes have been revised if not bastardized to something that one will not find in southern Italy. But at the end of the day you have what I have: a very personal adaptation of a broadly defined recipe for tomato based Italian meat sauce, and a steadfast belief that mine is the better interpretation. My version has elements of all three of these Italian classification of tomato based pasta sauces, but probably more approximates a ragù alla bolognese than anything else.

I also believe mine is fundamentally different than most American versions of Italian meat sauce for four reasons:

• Unlike most versions of tomato based Italian sauces that are simmered on the stove, mine is baked in a covered cast iron Dutch oven for at least six hours, allowing the gravy to amalgamate into a rich, dark reddish-mahogany color, with wonderful depth and character that positively makes your toes curl. This method of cooking locks in flavor-releasing steam, and keeps you from having to add liquid to the sauce as water evaporates, further diluting flavors. My method concentrates flavors, and nothing ever sticks or burns.
• I use green onion, not white or yellow onion for the same reason that you can easily enjoy a raw green onion with a little salt, whereas white or yellow onion are seldom enjoyed in their raw state except as an accompaniment to something else, such as a hamburger. I think green onions add a certain dimension of garden freshness to the sauce since I use not only the white root portion of the onion, but the flavorful green stems as well.
• I add green and black olives, and green and red bell pepper to my sauce, and I don't care whether anyone considers this to be an affront to "true" Italian cooking. I figure if it's good enough for a pizza, it's good enough for a meat sauce.
• Finally, I use ground beef and pork in my sauce, but not just any ground pork. I use mild Italian sausage. I either buy it in link form and remove the casings, or I buy it whole. This gives the dish an added zest and robustness that plain ground pork can't deliver. I have tried ground veal and personally don't believe that this adds much additional flavor to the dish. I will also say that you cannot substitute ground turkey for beef, so if you're worried about fat or cholesterol, move on to some other recipe.

My sauce is good enough to stand on its own, eaten like a bowl of chili with Parmesan cheese on top. And in fact, since wheat isn't in my diet, that's how I generally enjoy it. On pasta, however, it is sublime. And if you do eat it with pasta, don't put the sauce on top of the pasta. Put it in the pasta. By that, I mean, put your cooked, well drained pasta in a mixing bowl and ladle in my sauce. Toss to combine, coating all the strands of the pasta before putting it on a serving plate. Then add a little more sauce on top. You'll appreciate the difference this technique will bring to the dish.

Oh, and one more thing for you Italian meat sauce snobs out there. While I use a lot of fresh ingredients, I am just fine with canned diced tomatoes, and instead of using plain tomato sauce as a base, I use a commercially made brand of pasta sauce, called Classico Tomato and Basil. I simply choose to use a more flavorful tomato sauce as a base. Classico uses only natural ingredients like tomato paste, diced tomatoes, tomato juice, onions, salt, basil, garlic, olive oil and spices, with no added sugar.

Ingredients
1 pound ground beef (lean to fat ratio of 80:20)
1 pound mild Italian sausage (either whole or links)
1 bunch green onions (6-8 stalks, chopped, including stems)
1/2 pound fresh button mushrooms, sliced (you can substitute 2 6-oz cans of mushroom stems and pieces if you wish)
1 small green bell pepper, cored and diced, about a cup
1 small red bell pepper, cored and diced, about a cup
4 tbsp fresh minced garlic
1 4-1/4 oz can fine chopped black (ripe) olives
1/4 cup pimento-stuffed green olives (buy what is usually called "salad olives" which means they have done the chopping for you; drain well. If you use whole olives, give them a rough chop)
1 6-oz can tomato paste (like, Contadina or Hunts)
2 14.5 oz cans petite diced tomatoes (like, Hunts)
1 26 oz jar Classico Tomato and Basil Sauce (this is sold by weight, not liquid measure)
dry red wine, enough to fill the Classico jar (use a red table wine or splurge with an Italian Chianti, but never use anything called "cooking wine")
5 tbsp dried crushed oregano
5 tbsp dried crushed basil
3 tbsp dried thyme
2 tbsp garlic power
1/4 tsp dried red pepper flakes
4 whole bay leaves
salt & pepper to taste
olive oil for cooking 

The Recipe
If you bought Italian sausage links, slice them open lengthwise and remove the sausage from the casings. Discard the casings.

Putting your cast iron Dutch oven (at least a 5 quart size) on the stove, heat it on medium high until slightly smoking, then heat 2-3 tbsp olive oil until shimmering. Add the ground beef and Italian sausage. Chop and stir the meat with a spatula until all the beef and sausage is crumbled and the pink is gone. Remove the meat to a platter with a slotted spoon, draining the grease away as you go, and then pour off all but 2-3 tablespoons of oil, or add more olive oil to the pan if needed.

Add the green onions and saute for three or four minutes. Add the fresh minced garlic and continue to cook, stirring constantly so the garlic does not burn. Add the green and red bell pepper and saute for six to eight minutes until the peppers start to collapse and the onions are beginning to caramelize.

Check your oil and make sure you have enough to introduce the mushrooms. They will absorb oil quickly before ultimately releasing it along with a good bit of moisture. If you're using canned mushrooms, this doesn't really matter,  Put in your mushrooms and continue to saute all, stirring constantly. When your mushrooms have collapsed, add the olives and saute for another minute or two.

This is an important next step. I believe that sauteing the tomato paste is a critical element to the richness and depth of the sauce. Again checking to see if you have enough oil, add the tomato paste and half of the oregano, basil and thyme, and stir all of this together. Allow the vegetable mixture to slightly brown and bubble a bit, stirring constantly to make sure nothing sticks and burns.

The hard work is over. Pre-heat your oven to 300 degrees.

Now, put the two cans of petite diced tomatoes, juice and all, into the Dutch oven and stir to combine. Pour in the Classico Tomato and Basil sauce and stir again. Reintroduce the ground beef and Italian sausage to the Dutch oven, including any accumulated juice from the meat and stir some more. Then, fill the Classico jar with red wine. Put the lid on and shake it to get all the remaining sauce left in the jar. Pour the wine into the Dutch oven. Add the rest of your seasonings, including the garlic powder, red pepper flakes and the four whole basil leaves, and stir all of this to evenly disburse the seasonings and combine all of the ingredients well.

Taste test and add salt and pepper if needed. Remember, you're tasting this in a raw state, so it won't taste "done" yet, but you should be tasting for a balance of flavors that ring through all the way across your tongue. You may find you want more garlic or oregano.

The sauce should be a little watery or loose at this point, so if you need more moisture, add more wine or a little water, or even a bit of beef broth or stock.

Bring the sauce to a simmer. Then, put on the lid and place the vessel in your pre-heated oven. Turn the heat down from 300 to 225 degrees.

Leave the sauce alone for three hours. At that point, take the sauce out of the oven, take off the lid and stir well. The sauce should be taking on that deep rich reddish mahogany color and the vegetables should be completely collapsed and incorporated, almost so you cannot discern meat from peppers from onion.

If you need a little more liquid (chances are you won't), add a little more red wine or some beef broth or stock. You want the volume of the sauce to have reduced a bit, however, and thicken from when you took it off the stove. If the sauce has not reduced enough, raise the heat in your oven to 250 or 275 degrees.

Taste again for seasoning, but be careful not to add more salt as the sauce will continue to reduce, concentrating all flavors, including saltiness. I have generally found at this point, the sauce is gaining balance and needs little adjusting.

Cover and return it to the oven. Check and stir the sauce once an hour and continue cooking until the sauce has baked a total of at least six hours.