Too Good to Eat Alone

In my last brief post, I was mid-preparation of a veal ragù, and had just received word that, due to a change of plans, I would be alone for dinner.  Originally, I thought I was just slow cooking a casual Sunday night meal.  But the thing about slow cooked, stewed nuggets of veal is that they make the house smell really wonderful, and it becomes rather apparent that the food is going to be pretty delicious.  This was not going to be the kind of meal that one should eat alone on a couch in front of the television.  The best food should always be enjoyed with company.

Fortunately for me, I have very supportive parents, and when I called and explained to them my predicament (I'm making a veal ragù, and have no one with whom to eat it!), they hopped in their car to make sure their son would not be alone. 

We started with a salad (not pictured), that my mom prepared when she arrived.  The dressing was one of my favorites of hers: poppy seed vinaigrette, consisting of oil, cider vinegar, Dijon mustard, honey, poppy seeds, salt and pepper.  The salad was arugula, carrots, red onion, cannellini beans, and tomato slivers.

Then we moved to the ragù, served over rigatoni.

Rigatoni with Veal Ragù

To make this sauce (I will go into detail, because mom requested a recipe), I began by browning the stewing veal pieces (just under a pound, I think).  Then I removed the meat and deglazed the pot with the remainder of a bottle of cabernet.  I added half of a chopped vidalia onion, four small sliced carrots, two small diced tomatoes, a lot of garlic chunks, some green olives (about eight, cut in half), marjoram, bay leaf, a dash of cayenne pepper, a dash of cinnamon, a couple teaspoons of tomato paste, a drop of red wine vinegar, and enough water to cover everything well.  This simmered for a few hours.

My parents told me that they would be coming earlier than I was planning on eating.  With Sarah and Vanessa frequently working late, we have gotten in the habit of rarely eating before 8:00.  Mom and Dad were coming over at 7:00, and this left less time to slow cook the meat.  Since I was using stewing chunks of veal, I needed them to cook for a while, until they had dissolved into shreds of meat, and the liquid had almost completely reduced to a thick sauce.  With the lack of time, I had to speed things up.  I removed the meat from the bowl after about two hours of cooking.  At this point it was very tender but not really falling apart without help.  I heated up a large skillet to flash boil the sauce.  For those of you who don't speak kitchen jargon, this means when the pan was very hot, I poured in the sauce, which was still very liquid.  The large surface area of the pan and the significant increase in temperature causes a lot of liquid to immediately evaporate, reducing the sauce, and concentrating the flavor into what remains.  I quickly reduced this liquid on high heat for a couple minutes, until a couple cups of liquid had become about half of a cup of flavorful paste.  I had put the meat back into some of the remaining sauce in the pot while this was going on, and broke up the meat chunks a bit with a spoon.  When the reduced sauce was thick enough, I combined the meat sauce in the pot with the goodies in the pan. At this point, I added about a half of a cup of cannellini beans, and corrected the seasonings with salt and pepper.  I stirred in a little bit of heavy cream, and continued to slow cook until my folks came and it was time to eat.  As I said, earlier, I put the ragù over some rigatoni pasta, and we had a fresh warm baguette and some Côtes du Rhône.

I tell you, it sure is nice to have such supportive parents.  It was really considerate of them to come join me for dinner.  Food is an experience best shared with friends and family.  The more the merrier at the dinner table. 

If you'd like to come over for a bite, let me know!  Friends are always welcome.