Jon Frankel, poet, food writer

Reposted with permission from Jon Frankel from his blog The Last Bender

Gravy

We were in the city this weekend packing up the last of my mother’s stuff to bring to Ithaca. While in the city I had meant to go to Xi’an Famous Foods on 8th Street and 2nd Avenue. They have amazing hand-pulled noodles: http://xianfoods.com/ which are served with stewed meats, especially lamb spiced with cumin, as a soup or alone. Some of the dishes are spicy, with chilies and Ma La. They also have an astringent, crunchy salad of cilantro, scallions, celery and fresh red chili dressed in sesame oil and rice vinegar, which haunts me as much as their chewy beautiful noodles. This is rib sticking soul food from western China and I pine for it frequently. Anyway, it was not to be.

On the ride up to Ithaca my oldest son (11) discussed clams, a favorite of his, and he said that what he wanted was clams, sausage, shrimp and calamari cooked in a rich tomato sauce. This is Mediterranean soul food, and we were in harmonic resonance. Monday night we unloaded the truck and I stayed home from work on Tuesday to catch up on things, which meant I had time to prepare some sort of soul food from somewhere. I decided to make a version of the Italian American Sunday dinner staple, gravy, or ragu. A ragu is cooked for hours and hours. I didn’t have hours and hours. What I had was a pound of sausage, 1 pound and a half of ground beef (both from McDonald Farm), two pounds of whole chicken legs and four thick slices of Autumn Harvest’s double smoked bacon. I started by making meatballs out of the ground beef. Normally the proportion for meatballs is 1 egg and one slice of bread (soaked in warm milk) for every pound of beef. I only had one egg, so I used 1 egg, one slice of bread, 1/3 cup finely chopped onion, 2 T of finely chopped garlic, a good pinch of salt (maybe a teaspoon) fresh ground pepper and ¼ chopped parsley, plus a shot of olive oil. I mixed it up thoroughly and rolled the balls. Then I cut up the bacon into ½ inch pieces and browned them in olive oil. Scoop out the bacon and brown the meatballs. Don’t crowd the pan, and don’t worry about doing all the sides, two hemispheres with an unbrowned tropic zone will do. While they are browning (in several batches, in the pot you are going to make the rest of the gravy in) chop about a cup of onion, and ¾ cup each of celery and carrot, and 4 or 5 cloves of garlic. Set them aside. Cut the sausage up into chunks about the size of the meatballs. Separate the chicken leg from the chicken thigh and chop the thigh in half. When the meatballs are brown, brown the sausage and then the chicken. By now the pot is full of smouldering, smoky fat and browned bits of beef, sausage and chicken skin. Pour off some of the fat, but please, leave enough for flavor! Lower the heat to medium and sauté the vegetables (add some salt and pepper to taste), scraping up from the bottom until they are soft, for a few minutes. They shouldn’t be browned. Add chopped fresh sage and some rosemary, stir to release the aroma, and then add 2-1/2 cans of whole peeled Italian plum tomatoes (our tomato plants gave up the ghost last week), crushed in your hands, about 2 cups of red wine, give or take, and a bay leaf. Stir up all the bits, add the meat (it should be covered by the sauce amply) and bring to a boil. Then lower the heat to a strong simmer and cook for at least 45 minutes. Really, it can cook longer. When the sauce is thick enough to coat pasta, the oil separates and it is sweet, it’s ready to serve. Add a ¼ cup chopped parsley, a drizzle of olive oil, a good pinch of oregano, and a splash of red wine vinegar. Check the taste. Does it need salt? More olive oil? Pepper? We may not have had any more fresh tomatoes, but we did have juicy green beans on the vine. I picked a big bowl (the last I’m afraid, tomorrow night will be in the high 20’s) and steamed them until just done. We had the gravy over whole wheat fusilli. Another family would have grated cheese over it. It was like Sunday on Tuesday and made up for the noodle deficit of the weekend. And there are a dozen variations. One of which has clams. But that will be another week.