Equalized Italian venison meat sauce
Suitable for lasagna, spaghetti, ravioli or ???.
The baseline amounts are calibrated to produce enough sauce for one lasagna made in a standard 3 quart lasagna pan — It does NOT make 3 quarts of sauce.
The baseline amounts are calibrated to produce enough sauce for one lasagna made in a standard 3 quart lasagna pan — It does NOT make 3 quarts of sauce.
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Equalized Italian venison meat sauce
Suitable for lasagna, spaghetti, ravioli or ???.
The baseline amounts are calibrated to produce enough sauce for one lasagna made in a standard 3 quart lasagna pan — It does NOT make 3 quarts of sauce. |
| Servings |
| 3quart pan |
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Ingredients
- 1lb coarse ground venison. — or lean ground beef if you must.
- 1lb Italian pork sausage — Hot if that’s ok with your crowd. Maybe sweet if not.
Veggies
- 1 large diced white or yellow onion
- 2cloves diced garlic — crushed/diced
- 12oz tomato paste — small can is 6oz
- 28oz canned crushed or stewed tomatoes
- 2 diced fresh ripe tomatoes.
- 13oz canned tomato sauce or puree
Herbs (if using fresh, reserve until final 10 minutes, except Rosemary, which you chop fine)
- 1/4cup fresh chopped parsley
- 2tsp dried basil — better is to triple amount using fresh minced
- 2tsp dried oregano ” “
- 1/2Tsp dried thyme ” “
- 1/2tsp dried rosemary ” “
- 1/2tsp fennel seeds— Crush them a bit.
- 1 Bay Leaf
- 1tsp fresh cracked black pepper
Other Stuff
- 1Tbsp olive oil
- 2Tbsp sugar
- 2tsp salt — back off if you like. Don’t go higher until final taste.
- 3/4cup Full bodied dry red wine (e.g. Cabernet) — if more liquid is needed, use either wine or stock.
- 1oz brandy
Instructions
- Mix meats together, form into wide thin patties and brown well in hot skillet. Chop patties into small chunks and set aside.
- If there is much liquid left behind separate it and either discard the fat or return it to the pan. Reserve the remaining liquid.
- add oil to skillet and slowly saute the onion and garlic for 2 or 3 minutes
- Add the tomato paste and mix with the onion and garlic. Heat for a few minutes
- Deglaze with just enough of the red wine to do the job.
- Add all remaining tomato ingredients. If using stewed, optionally first snip the large chunks into smaller chunks with kitchen shears.
- Simmer 10 minutes then remove 1/3 of sauce and set aside to cool a bit, then stage in the fridge while the main batch reduces.
- Return browned ground meat to skillet.
- Add the salt, sugar and ground pepper, and all remaining herbs and spices (except fresh herbs reserved till end) and bring to a simmer.
- Add any remaining liquids.
- Simmer uncovered, stirring frequently (every 5 minutes or so – I set a timer every time to remind myself) until reduced to a good thickness. It takes a while. It goes fastest if you have a nice wide, shallow skillet or saute pan. When reducing anything, surface area is your friend. You can speed things up with more heat, but if it’s hotter than a slow simmer you’ll need to stir constantly.
- NOTE ON SAUCE TEXTURE: If you plan to use this sauce on fresh or “ready to bake” pasta (noodles you don’t boil) the sauce should be looser because the noodles will need to soak up some liquid. You can stop reducing earlier, while it is still fairly loose, or add liquid back after reducing using any combination of dry red wine, tomato juice, stock or water. If adding liquid back, bring the sauce back up to a simmer before continuing.
After the sauce is reduced:
- Mix in the parsley and any other reserved fresh herbs.
- Mix in the reserved 1/3rd sauce. Bring to a simmer, simmer for 10 minutes, then remove from heat.
- Remove bay leaf. Taste and add salt/pepper as necessary.
Recipe Notes
Options: Add Roughly 1 Tbsp butter for each 6oz of tomato. Add a little olive oil to the sauce.
Tip: If mixing pasta and sauce together at the table or just before serving, reserve a ladle or two of the pasta water and mix it into the sauce just before serving. No need to do this for lasagna or any other baked casserole-style pasta dish. It helps the pasta and sauce bond a bit better.
If you can, mix in a ladle or two of your pasta water at the end.