Here I was spending too much time on my phone and no prospects for dinner last night. Scrolling along and I came across this pasta recipe where I stopped scrolling for a minute to watch it. Paused it and went through the cupboards and fridge in my mind “do I have everything to make this?” well not exactly but I can make it work. Work it did, it was very easy and delicious to boot. So here I am sharing it with you all.
I think the only thing I didn’t have was the penne pasta and I would have liked to have 2 kinds of meat instead of just the burger I had in the freezer but other than that I had everything else and I bet you do too. The name Penne Strascicate means Penne “dragged” through ragu. I guess you can make this without the white sauce béchamel but I wanted to try it with it and it was so good.
It may seem like a lot of ingredients and time consuming but most of it is hands off, you may spend 15-20 minutes at the stove in total. I am going to add Penne and some ground beef/pork to my grocery list so I can try this as the recipe calls, I bet it will be even better next time around.
Penne Strascicate
Ingredients
- 1 box penne pasta cooked till al-dente
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1 pound ground pork
- 3 carrots finely diced
- 3 celery finely diced
- 1 onion finely diced
- ¾ tube tomato paste
- olive oil
- ½ cup red or white wine
- ½ cup beef broth
- freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
- Kosher salt and black pepper
Béchamel Sauce
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 2 tablespoons flour
- 1 cup milk
Instructions
prepare the Ragu sauce
- In a large skillet add a couple of swirls of olive oil, over medium low heat add the onion, carrots and celery. After 3-4 minutes add the ground meats, Add the tomato paste and wine plus broth. Simmer for 45 minutes.
cooking pasta
- Cook the pasta to al-dente roughly 2-3 minutes less than the package instructions, it will continue cooking in the sauce. Drain reserving a cup or two of the pasta water. Toss the pasta in the sauce over high heat for 1-2 minutes, using some of the pasta water to keep it creamy.
prepare the Béchamel sauce
- in a small to medium size pot melt the butter, add the garlic and then the flour, cook this for 1-2 minutes then gradually add the milk stirring until the sauce thickens.
- Finish by stirring in the white sauce and generous amounts of freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano. Serve immediately with extra cheese.