Ragù Napoletano

Ragù napoletano is Naples' slow-cooked meat sauce—a monumental, day-long braise of large pieces of mixed meats (pork ribs, beef braciole, sausages, sometimes a whole piece of pork skin) simmered in a concentrated tomato sauce for 4-6 hours until the meat is fall-apart tender and the sauce has reduced to a dark, mahogany, intensely savoury concentrate that is used in two courses: the sauce dresses pasta (typically ziti or paccheri) as a primo, and the meats are served separately as a secondo. This is fundamentally different from ragù bolognese (which is a minced-meat sauce): Neapolitan ragù uses large, intact pieces of meat that braise in the tomato sauce, flavouring it deeply while themselves becoming succulent and tender. The process begins early in the morning (or the night before): onions are softened in olive oil or lard, the meats are browned, then tomato passata and a concentrate of tomato paste are added, and the pot simmers at the barest possible bubble ('pippiare'—the Neapolitan onomatopoeia for the lazy, intermittent blipping of a barely simmering sauce) for many hours. The sauce should never boil—it must pippiare: a single bubble breaking the surface every few seconds. Over hours, the meat releases its collagen and fat into the tomato sauce, which concentrates, darkens, and develops an extraordinary depth—sweet from the reduced tomatoes, savoury from the meat juices, with an almost caramelised intensity. The finished sauce is dark red, not bright; thick and clingy, not watery; and has a complex, layered flavour that no quick sauce can replicate. The Eduardo De Filippo play 'Sabato, domenica e lunedì' revolves around a Neapolitan family's Sunday ragù—testament to its centrality in Neapolitan life.

• Greek kokkinisto (meat braised in tomato)
• Ragù alla Bolognese (minced-meat variant)
• French daube (long-braised meat)
• Mexican barbacoa (slow-braised meat)