Ragù del Portinaio, Local Recipe in Campania, Italy

Ragù del Portinaio

There is an old legend deeply bound to the famous Neapolitan ragout, historical Parthenopean recipe greatly extolled even by the worldwide popular Eduardo De Filippo (1900-1984, actor, playwright, screenwriter, author and poet, best known for his Neapolitan works Filumena Marturano and Napoli Milionaria) in a lovely poem, called 'o rrau'.

According to the legend, at the end of 1300 the ascetic group known as 'Compagnia dei Bianchi di Giustizia', walked on foot around Naples invoking "mercy and peace". The group arrived nearby "Palazzo dell'Imperatore" (emperor residence), still visible in Via Tribunali, used as royal residence by Charles and Maria of Valois, Charles of Anjou's daughter. At that time a cruel and treacherous man lived into the building. The group, through a sympathetic pray, convinced the whole local population to make peace with each other except of that bad man, who continued to bear old grudges.

The noble man was blinded with anger and revenge and one day, his partner, in order to touch his heart, prepared a copious portion of macaroni. The 'divine providence' filled the dish with blood. At the end the man, moved by the prodigy, made peace with his enemies, dressed the white tunic (uniform) and followed the 'Compagnia'.

His wife, happy for that unexpected decision, prepared another portion of macaroni, that became red by magic once again, but having a very attractive smell. The man appreciated so much the recipe that insisted to call it "raù", as his child namesake.

The French word "ragout" indicate long time stewed meat, fish or vegetable, but in Italy there are two types of ragù: with minced meat (belonging to the Bolognese tradition); with an entire peace of meat to stew slowly (which characterizes most of the south of Italy's cuisine).

In spite of the numerous variants existing everywhere, the most famous ragù certainly is the Neapolitan one. The typical Neapolitan housewife starts making ragù very early in the morning, using a large earthenware pot. The unique and original flavour depends on the cooking time: the real ragù is not a simple tomato sauce with meat! The extremely long time (originally more than 6 hours!) needed to make it perfect, along with the constant watchful care, made the concierges (portinai) the perfect ragù makers! They were the only ones able to take care of both building and 'kitchen', where the ragù "pipiava" (onomatopoeic therm used to mean boiling gently).

Ingredients

1 kg veal stew

2 medium size onions

2 litres tomato sauce

1 tablespoon tomato purée

200 gr extra-virgin olive oil

6 'tracchiulelle' (pork ribs)

1/4 litre red wine, preferably from Gragnano

basil

salt to taste

Preparation

It will be definitely much better if you start cooking the day before. Heat the olive oil in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over a medium heat until just smoking. Place together meat and finely minced onion, season each piece of pork with salt and let them brown on both sides. Once browned, deglaze with red wine and let the onions melt, until almost disappearing. Then add tomato sauce and bring to simmer. Cover with the lid and simmer for 3 hours stirring every once in a while.