What You Need

1 pound of ground pork.

1 pound of ground beef.

1 large carrot.

1 large onion.

3 stalks celery.

4 cloves of garlic.

1 can of quality plum tomatoes.

4 tablespoons of tomato paste.

3 cups of Passata, a tomato sauce readily available in grocery stores.

1 cup white wine.

1 cup milk.

3 tablespoons butter.

3 tablespoons olive oil.

1 pinch of nutmeg.

1 pinch of cloves.

1 bunch of fresh basil.

Salt and pepper.

Equipment

A food processor.

A wooden board.

A big pot.

A pasta maker or a rolling pin.

Method

The Ragu

In the food processor add your onion, garlic, carrots and celery, then grind.

Put your butter and olive oil in a large sauce pan and melt over medium heat. Then take your vegetable out of the food processor and add to the pan, sweating the vegetables – over medium heat for 5 to 10 minutes.

Add your pork and beef to the pan, stirring thoroughly. Then add your white wine and let it evaporate for 2 minutes.

Now add the tomato paste, the Passata and the plum tomatoes. Then add the spices and the basil. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Over medium heat cook for at least one hour. Then add your milk and cook for one hour.

Taste and adjust seasoning if needed.

The Pasta – Tagliatelle Dough

What You Need

2 5/8 cups flour.

3 eggs.

2 egg yolks.

1 tablespoon olive oil.

1/2 package of frozen spinach. Unthaw and drain really well, ensuring all the moisture is gone.

Method

Place all the ingredients into the food processor but not the spinach.

Pulse for 1 minute and then take half the mixture and put it on a wooden board, lightly dusted with flour.

Knead for a few minutes till dough is smooth and all the ingredients are combined. Set aside.

Now add the spinach to the mixer with the remaining dough. Pulse until combined and then place dough on the wooden board and knead the dough, if it is too moist sprinkle flour on the board and knead till it is the same as the other dough that you set aside.

Now wrap the two dough separately with Saran Wrap, put in the fridge for 30 minutes.

When done take out the dough and either with a rolling pin or a pasta maker roll the dough to 1/16th. of an inch, about the thickness of a nickel. Then cut the pasta into strips.

Blanch the pasta for 1 minute.

In the meantime take and melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a sauté pan and then add your pasta and your enough Ragu for two.

Toss well and add to a warmed plate. Grate some Parmigiana cheese over the top of the dish.

Enjoy.

P.S.

There will be leftover ragu. It will last a week in the fridge or you can freeze it.
You can serve it with any pasta for a quick meal.

Who Is Marta Pan

Marta Pan’s life is fuelled by passion.

One is painting, the other cooking.

Born in Italy, she moved to Vancouver when she was 13 old.

It was her dad Mario that got her into cooking.

“Mario had me making risotto (my most memorable, not sure if the first…”risotto alla sbirraglia”), stirring polenta, rolling gnocchi and making pasta, since I could walk. I fondly remember the “zuppe di pesce” he made in Sardegna with copious varieties seafood we would trap in our nets at dawn, daily.”

Cooking along with painting were two of her passions.

Eventually she ended up taking cooking courses at a Vancouver cooking school, worked at various fine restaurants and then established her own catering business.

Today she is, for want of a better word, a freelance chef – supplying traditional Italian food to restaurants in Vancouver.

Marta always has stuck to her Italian cooking roots.

Her great aunts were a great influence.
Most of the ingredients of all the great meals we often shared with extended family, around their kitchen table, came from their land.

And to this day Marta follows a tradition of theirs – writing out by hand, all of her recipes.