Ingredients
My cousin Kathleen added a couple of things to the recipe. I’ve made notations of those things in case you want to be a Nancy purist. I like Kathleen’s additions and do it her way.
3 lb ground meat (beef, pork, veal)
2 16oz cans of tomato paste
2 cans water for each can of paste
2 large yellow onions
4+ large cloves of garlic
1 Bay leaf
1 cup of fresh basil
1/2 cup of flat leaf parsley
3 to 6 links Italian sweet and hot sausage cut in half (Kathleen’s addition)
Salt and pepper (to taste)
Red pepper flakes (Kathleen’s addition)
Olive oil
Preparation
Add enough olive oil to your pot or Dutch oven to cover the bottom. Saute the onions until they sweat thoroughly, adding the garlic halfway through. If you are using red pepper flakes, add them when you add the garlic. Keep stirring so nothing gets stuck to the bottom. When the onions are brown, add all of the meat breaking it up with a wooden spoon – cooking it until it is no longer pink. Mix in the tomato paste. Add the water, bay leaf, salt and pepper.
Simmer for 2 hours on a very low flame stirring often.
Add sausage and simmer for another 1.5 hours – again on a very low flame stirring often.
Add a handful of chopped parsley and a handful of chopped basil and adjust seasonings to taste. Aunt Nancy sometimes added about 1 tbsp of sugar at this point if the sauce tasted bitter.
Our Aunt Nancy liked to serve it over Fusilli because she said the shape trapped the meat.
