Macaronade Sétoise

Ingredients

• For the braise
• 800 g joue de boeuf (beef cheek), or plat de côtes; cut into large braising pieces
• 400 g pork sausage or pork ribs, saucisse de Toulouse preferred; ribs scored
• 30 ml olive oil
• 200 g onion, finely diced
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed or finely chopped
• 400 g tomato concassé, fresh or tinned; roughly chopped, skins and seeds removed if fresh
• 375 ml dry red wine, Languedoc — Faugères, Saint-Chinian, or Picpoul rouge
• 500 ml water or beef stock, sufficient to cover; adjust as needed
• For the pasta
• 400 g rigatoni or macaroni, short-tube pasta from a named Italian producer
• 10 g fine salt, for pasta cooking water; water must be well-salted
• For the gratin
• 150 g Gruyère de Comté AOP, aged minimum 10 months; finely grated

Method

1. 1
   Heat the olive oil in a wide, heavy-based casserole over high heat. Working in batches, brown the beef cheek pieces and pork sausage or ribs on all sides without crowding the pan. The fond on the pan base should be deep mahogany, not grey. Remove the browned meat and set aside. The dish is decided here and in the next two steps: insufficient colour at this stage produces a flat, one-dimensional braising liquid.
2. 2
   Reduce the heat to medium. Add the diced onion to the same casserole and cook in the residual fat until softened and translucent, 8–10 minutes. Add the garlic and cook a further 2 minutes. Add the tomato concassé and cook down, stirring occasionally, until the mixture thickens and the raw tomato smell gives way to a deeper, reduced aroma.
3. 3
   Return all browned meat to the casserole. Pour in the red wine and deglaze, scraping up every particle of the fond. Add water or stock to cover. Bring to a gentle simmer, cover, and cook for a minimum of 3 hours. This is where the dish lives or dies: the joue de boeuf must pass fully through the tough stage into complete gelatin release. Test by pressing a piece against the side of the casserole with a spoon — it must yield without resistance and begin to pull apart. At 90 minutes the meat is still tough; do not remove it early.
4. 4
   Remove the meat from the casserole. Shred the beef into coarse pieces; remove any sausage casing and break the pork into similar pieces. Return all shredded meat to the braising liquid. Taste the liquid: it should carry gelatin body, wine depth, and tomato sweetness as a unified whole. Season with salt as required.
5. 5
   Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a full rolling boil. Cook the rigatoni or macaroni until al dente — firm at the centre with the faintest resistance to the tooth. Drain immediately. The pasta will continue to absorb liquid during the gratin stage; it must not be fully cooked at this point.
6. 6
   Preheat the oven to 220 °C. In a deep gratin dish, build alternating layers: pasta, meat and shredded pieces, a ladleful of braising liquid. Continue until all components are used, finishing with a layer of pasta. Ladle additional braising liquid over the surface so the pasta is moistened throughout but not submerged. Distribute the grated Gruyère de Comté generously and evenly over the top.
7. 7
   Place the gratin dish in the preheated oven at 220 °C. Bake until the Gruyère forms a golden-brown, blistered crust with darker patches — the crust should shatter where prodded at the edge, and the pasta tubes should be visible beneath where the crust lifts. A uniform pale gold surface indicates insufficient heat or an insufficiently aged cheese. Rest the finished gratin 15 minutes before serving.