Ask Frank: You Want the Real Sicilian Sauce? Do Not Skip a Step.

Hey Frank,

Please share with me your recipe for meat sauce? My mother-in-law had one.  All good Sicilian do.  Also, I know you fancy yourself a cook. 

So please share your recipe!!!!!!

Thank you!!!

 Nice Guy

Dear Nice Guy

SICILIAN MEAT SAUCE

Here it is. Follow it exactly. Do not skip steps. Every one of them is there for a reason.

THE TOMATOES

Buy or pick about 20 pounds of small, ripe, meaty tomatoes. 

Split them by hand into a large basin and crush them. Salt them hard — a couple of fistfuls of sea salt. Let them sit overnight.

In the morning, push the tomatoes through a sieve by hand until only skins and seeds remain. 

Spread the pulp across a wide wooden board and put them out in the  sun. Every few hours, turn it with a wooden paddle so it doesn't crust. 

Bring the boards in at sundown — dew ruins it — and carry them back out at dawn. Do this for four or five days until it is brick-colored and a spatula stands up in it. 

Pack it into a crock, seal the top with a finger of olive oil, and put it in the coolest corner of the house. That's your tomato. You'll need about a spoonful.

THE MEAT

You'll want pork. For pork you need a pig. Feed it through the fall on acorns, prickly pear and kitchen leftovers. 

Wait for a cold, dry day in January. Have the water already boiling in a cauldron.

Once it's done, scald and scrape off the bristles, hang it from a beam, and open it. 

Wash the intestines; you'll want those for sausage later. 

Cut the shoulder into chunks — do not grind it, and mince the trimmings by hand on a board with a good, sharp knife. 

Cut the fat into pieces and render it slowly in the cauldron until it's clear. Pour it into jars. That's your cooking fat. The crispy bits at the bottom; eat them with bread.

Salt the hams and hang the rest from the rafters.

THE SAUCE

Gather brushwood and get a fire going. Let it burn down to coals. Take a heavy clay pot, put in a few spoons of lard and set it near — not on — the coals.

Pull an onion and a head of garlic from the garden and chop them. 

Soften the onion in the fat. 

Add the pork and turn it with a wooden spoon until browned on all sides. 

Crush some salt in a mortar and throw it in. Pour in a cup of red wine and scrape the bottom until the wine is gone.

Dissolve a spoonful of your tomato in a ladle of water from the well and stir it in. Add a bay leaf. A little pepper.

Pull the pot to the edge of the coals and let it barely bubble for three or four hours. Somebody has to feed twigs to the fire, stir so the bottom doesn't catch, skim the fat, and add water when it gets tight. 

While it simmers, knead semolina, water and salt into a dough, roll it around a knitting needle to make maccheroni, and let them dry on a cloth. Boil them in a second pot, drain through a basket, and toss with the sauce. 

Grate a piece of aged pecorino over it with the small side of a grater.

That's it. It's not complicated. Let me know how it turns out.