January 28th - Spaghetti and Meat Sauce

January 28th – Spaghetti and Meat Sauce
I like meat sauce but don’t seem to make it much. It doesn’t take much time, but I still don’t always do it and don’t really have a good answer as to why. Every time I do make it and eat it, I wonder why don’t do more often. I’ll never figure it out. My stomach was still a little uneasy, and despite the acid in the tomatoes, spaghetti and meat sauce is comfort food.

Everyone has their own version of making meat sauce and I’m no different. Mine isn’t complicated and I think what makes it so good is that it’s so basic. I learned how to make it from my mother and while we’re not Italian, my mother learned it from a friend who was Sicilian, and, from what we’ve been told, it’s a typical Sicilian sauce. My sauce uses ground beef, canned tomatoes, tomato paste, olive oil, garlic, basil, oregano, and a pinch of sugar. Pretty basic. It’s not a Bolognese sauce, it’s just plain meat sauce. In fact if you’ve seen the Godfather, you’ve pretty much seen this sauce being made. In one scene during the gang war, the men are all hiding out in an apartment and Clemenza is cooking. He says to Michael:

“Hey, come over here, kid, learn something. You never know, you might have to cook for 20 guys someday. You see, you start out with a little bit of oil. Then you fry some garlic. Then you throw in some tomatoes, tomato paste, you fry it; ya make sure it doesn't stick. You get it to a boil; you shove in all your sausage and your meatballs. And a little bit o' wine. An' a little bit o' sugar, and that's my trick."

I normally don’t add the wine, and I brown the meat in the pan as opposed to adding meatballs and sausages, but that’s it. (If I did use meatballs and sausages I’d do it like he said. Like most braises and stews, this improves with time, but it can be a great sauce even if you only simmer it for an hour, which is what I did this time because I was pressed for time.
I love inexpensive red wine with spaghetti and meat sauce but had none in the house and didn’t feel like pulling a big gun. So I went with the spiced tripel instead. Not a great substitute and not a great match, but it has the brawn of a rustic style of red wine and that was a s close as I was going to get. And as I sat there eating the pasta and sauce I wondered why I don’t make it more often.