[upbeat music]
[singer vocalizing]
Hi, I’m Stefano Secchi, the executive chef of Massara
here in New York City.
We’re making what I think is the perfect sausage ragu
from southern Italia with cortecce pasta.
Fire it up.
We’ve had Rezdora here for about five and a half years.
We were able to get a few stars here and there
and we’re kind of doing it like next level
Southern Italian food here at Massara.
It’s gonna be amazing.
[upbeat music]
Today we’re making a sausage ragu bianco
with a little bit of prosciutto inside.
Ragu is meat based.
It’s a sauce for pasta for the most part.
This dish at its best is the saltiness of the sausage.
You have the chewiness of the pasta,
you have the Parmigiano Reggiano, the creaminess of that.
And then you have this like really beautiful bitterness
that comes from the broccoli rabe.
So the first thing we’re gonna do,
is we’re gonna get our sausage ready
and start browning off our sausage.
[upbeat music]
So since we do, you know,
a decent amount of production here,
I usually take a sheet tray.
We just take a half sheet tray.
Add a little bit of neutral oil.
We have sunflower oil here, right.
And I’m gonna oil the base of this sheet tray.
So when people think of sausage,
they’re thinking about sausage in the casing.
We actually buy our sausages in bulk.
It’s pork shoulder with pepper, a little bit of garlic,
peperoncino, which makes it a little bit spicy,
fennel and salt, okay.
It’s better than the sausage in the casings,
so you don’t have to open the casings
one by one to make this ragu, right.
10 ounce Mike Tyson glove, right.
That’s gonna go in and help to press down the sausage.
Okay.
We want to create like surface area, right.
It’s actually a fish weight.
It actually, it works really well.
You can use the bottom of a pot.
So again, a neutral oil.
We don’t want to use extra virgin olive oil
’cause we need something
with a really high smoke point, right.
So I have sunflower here.
We use sunflower a lot in Italia.
[meat sizzles]
Like, the more surface area,
the more Maillard reaction you have
in the actual ragu at the end of the day.
So that’s why we wanna have the most amount
of surface area possible
and that’s why we flattened out the sausage, okay.
You can easily do it in a stock pot like this,
like we have back here.
You just have to do it in smaller batches.
We do it this way because at the restaurant
we do almost 20 pounds of sausage at a time.
Pork’s the right move for this ragu
because it’s nice and fatty.
So then we’ll re-emulsify that into the sauce
before we serve it with the pasta.
The right amount of browning is like
what we’re looking for right here, right.
This little section right here.
It’s not cooked through at this point.
It’s cooked about 50%.
Okay, so we browned off the sausage.
We’re gonna get this downstairs
and get it mixed up in the standup mixer
with half of the weight and prosciutto di Parma.
[gentle music]
Sausage is going right inside the mixer.
Okay, you can do it by hand.
In the beginning, we used to just take a wooden spoon
and then it became way too tedious.
So then we have prosciutto di Parma, [speaks Italian]
a 24 month prosciutto di Parma.
It’s gonna go right inside with the sausage.
I mean, just think about
when you have sliced prosciutto with mozzarella.
Just think about what it adds.
It’s just next level of richness, right.
[machine thunking]
When we mix this so we can just break it all apart, right.
So when you’re saucing, you’ll see later
when we make the actual pasta and put it all together,
that there aren’t big chunks of sausage
as part of the ragu, right.
It’s one like nice mixed homogenized ragu.
We’re gonna let this mix for another 10 minutes
and then it’s gonna go right into our soffritto upstairs.
[upbeat music]
So the soffritto is the depth of flavor,
like that vegetable flavor
that gives that depth of the ragu.
We’re doing a soffritto bianco here,
which is a white soffritto,
which means no carrots at all.
One of the big secrets at Massara and Rezdora
is that we blend it until it’s fully emulsified.
And so when it melts into the ragu,
you don’t even know it’s there.
So our soffritto bianco consists
of equal parts yellow onion,
we have shallot
and we have green onion, [speaks Italian],
and then celery, right.
So I also use the celery leaves
’cause the celery leaves are just as important.
And then we have extra virgin olive oil.
So again, everything’s gonna go in at the same time.
To have an emulsifier with your ragu
is one of the things that makes our ragus here,
you know, really incredible.
What I usually do is I’ll blend a lot of this
and then we have ice cube trays in our freezer
and I’ll just put the soffritto,
it needs one of the ice cube trays.
They’ll go inside the freezer.
And then when I wanna make like a quick ragu
or a quick salsa pomodoro or something,
I’ll just pop out the ice cube trays
and then I’ll just cook the soffritto there.
[upbeat music]
If you’re looking for like
an incredible restaurant style quality,
then this is one of those like integral parts
that you don’t wanna skip.
Okay, so this is blended
and now we’re just gonna cook it down.
I have the same pan that we cooked the sausage in.
We have the fond on the bottom there,
which are all the brown pieces.
We’re gonna add a little bit more
of extra virgin olive oil, okay.
[pan sizzling]
You guys smell that?
I mean, it’s unbelievable, right.
Right?
So it has to be cooked so we can cook the alliums,
the Spanish onion and the shallot
to bring even more depth of flavor, right.
And we also wanna scrape off the fond of the bottom.
And then imagine this melting into the ragu, right.
So now a lot of white wine, okay.
So almost a full liter of vino bianco.
The ragu is pretty fatty, right.
So you need the acidity in the background
to kind of cut through all the fat.
And so when you have that white wine and reduce it,
then you have this like syrup of like rich acidity
that’s gonna add the balance of the flavor for the ragu.
So this is gonna cook for another 10 minutes
until the white wine’s fully reduced.
[upbeat music]
All right, soffritto’s cooked down with our white wine.
You see how the white wine
is pretty much all but reduced right now, right.
So that’s like an intense acidity, right.
We have the sausage and the prosciutto
that has been mixed together really well.
Chicken stock, it’s gonna go right inside as well.
So chicken stock is just gonna add
that next layer of flavor, right.
And you have a lot of gelatin inside.
It’s really, really delicious, okay.
So you break up the sausage slightly, okay.
And what I have is we have a lot of Parmigiano Reggiano
that we use in the restaurant.
That’s gonna go, all the rinds are in cheesecloth right now,
but you have this like really intense stock
with this flavor of Parmigiano
that is one of those things that just,
how do you get that next level of flavor?
This Parmigiano again has been sitting
[speaks Italian], 24 months, right.
Two years of people’s lives, this has been sitting.
And so this flavor is really intense.
And then we’re gonna cook it really, really slow
for the next 10 hours.
So we have to get this on, you know,
what is it like 9:30, 10:00 AM right now?
We have to get this on
because this has gotta cook all the way
until we get to service at 5:00 PM today, right.
So we let it cook for 10 hours
and that’ll give us time to start
rolling our pasta downstairs.
[upbeat music]
You wanna make your own pasta here
because this is one of the doughs that’s so easy to make,
but also so satisfying that you have this like extra chew.
So I’m gonna start, semolina.
We get Semolina Rimacinata,
which means that it’s not coarse semolina,
but semolina’s been passed again through the mill.
Semolina is a durum based flour.
And then we have doppio zero.
Doppio zero again is soft wheat flour,
both of which are pretty fine grinds,
have really nice mouth texture.
Okay, we’re making the well and I have [speaks Italian].
So this needs to be hot water, okay.
Because why, hot water is easier for the dough to hydrate.
And listen, you can easily do this in a bowl
or whatever you want,
whatever’s easiest for you guys.
I always start that way
and that’s a good trick for anyone at home.
I always add a little bit of water at a time
because each flour hydrates differently.
So now I’m gonna start working it really well, okay.
[speaks Italian], turn.
1, 2, 3, turn.
Okay, 1, 2, 3, turn.
What we’re doing right now
is we’re just creating all the gluten, right.
And you can see how, especially with the semolina,
it’s starting to get much more difficult to knead, right.
It’s hydrating, you’re developing the gluten,
the proteins, natural proteins in the dough.
We always do a thumb test
and when it bounces back right away, it’s ready.
Yes, it bounced back because there’s gluten developed
but not enough, right, so I’m gonna continue
for another three or four minutes, okay.
Okay, let’s fold it over again.
[speaks Italian]
So we’re gonna just rest him,
cover in plastic wrap
and we’re gonna let this pasta dough rest
for at least 30 minutes
and then we’re gonna roll it out,
and it rests room temperature.
[upbeat music]
Here you get chef Tony,
he’s been on almost all these videos.
Chef Tony, you gotta turn around.
You’ve been on so many, it’s like, eh.
Okay, now we’re in the temperature controlled pasta room,
which is like the heart of all of Massara, right.
And the best thing here is that we have the Ferrari’s,
we have the Ferrari of pasta machines, La Monferrina.
Cortecce is gonna be one of those shapes
that you just don’t see anymore.
If we think of cavatelli when you roll it out
and then you press it with two or three fingers,
it looks kind of like a small seashell, right.
Cortecce is pressed with four fingers, right.
So this is one of those where you get just long enough,
but you also, the indentions will allow
the ragu to sit inside.
So that’s what makes it really beautiful.
One of my favorites.
Okay, so.
I mean, it’s just flour and water,
but it smells incredible, right.
It’s tacky.
Okay. Rested.
We’re gonna add some doppio zero flour.
I’m gonna cut it in half.
Okay.
[pasta machine clanging]
Whenever we work at both Rezdora and Massara
we always laminate our doughs ’cause it also helps
with that al dente texture that we’re looking for, yeah.
So you’ll see that I fold it half just then.
Laminating is when you fold over,
just like you would have, like,
those layers in a croissant, right.
So you’ll get like the bite in of the texture
when you laminate the dough like this, right.
Okay, so you’ll see that, like,
I haven’t added too much flour at all, right.
We just don’t want the actual pasta to be gummy.
’cause you add additional flour,
and layer upon flour, flour upon layer
and it’s like,
instead of it being integrated into the dough,
the flour just stays on top.
And that’s how you’ll get the gumminess
on a pasta that you’re not looking for.
And again, we have to talk about
how we get cortecce done well.
So, we take a pastry cutter.
Pastry cutter makes everything
really nice and even, which is super important,
especially when you’re at the restaurant.
So you can do cortecce the exact same every time.
So we have two strands of the pasta.
Pull it apart.
So cortecce’s gonna be about that size and width.
[speaks Italian]
Press,
[gentle music] pull.
Yeah, like that’s what we’re looking for, right.
Just take a look here, you have all these divots
and you have little pieces of sausage sitting in there.
So when you take one or two or three, four folds,
you have the Calabrian chili,
the garlic, the sausage inside.
It’s the best medium, the best way
to transport the ragu into your mouth.
I don’t know, [chuckles], a better way to put it, I mean.
I’m gonna roll out the rest of this cortecce.
We’re gonna press them, we’re gonna let it dry,
and then it’s gonna go right in into our dish
for the sausage ragu.
Fire it up.
[gentle music]
Okay, so the ragu has been simmering, right.
for eight hours.
We’re finishing everything up right now.
The pasta has been made,
we’ve rolled it out, we’ve formed everything.
And now we’re gonna put it all together.
Yeah, this is where it all comes together.
So I have the broccoli rabe.
The bitter is gonna counteract, like,
the really richness of the sausage ragu.
Add a little bit of extra virgin olive oil to the pot.
Right now we’re gonna add the broccoli rabe in first, okay.
[pan sizzling]
A pan like this really helps to incorporate the air, right.
I’m gonna add a little bit of sliced garlic.
We slice the garlic on the mandolin really thin
so it melts into the sauce, right.
An important part of this is to get, like,
a depth of flavor with fresh Calabrian chilies.
So that’s the base.
We’re gonna add our sausage ragu,
that’s been cooking down, okay.
Coarse sea salt,
that’s what we’re gonna season the water with, right.
I always taste the pasta water.
People think it’s crazy, but it’s fundamental, right.
The pasta, like 50% of the flavor in the pasta
is gonna be from the water, right.
So we’re gonna drop our cortecce
that’s been cooked through finished.
That’s gonna take two to three minutes to cook, okay.
Broccoli rabe’s been cooked down,
two to three minutes to cook the cortecce.
So I have beautiful starchy water from the pasta.
Okay, we’re gonna add that in.
I cook the pasta 75% of the way there and, [speaks Italian],
the glazing is gonna cook it the rest of the 25%, right.
We add pasta water
because the starch in the pasta water
is gonna help to A,
finish the cooking process of the actual pasta.
And then B, help glaze the sauce.
[pan rattling] [gentle music]
Off the heat.
Parmigiano Reggiano, [speaks Italian],
which means a lot of Parmigiano Reggiano.
And then we have a finishing oil.
See how it’s all glazed really nice and beautifully
and you have a nice sheen, right.
This is what we’re looking for, yeah.
I love to have everything in the middle.
And I’m just gonna finish
with just a little bit of more ragu on top.
[upbeat music] [singer vocalizing]
Oh my god.
So we have the spiciness of the Calabrian chili.
We have the richness of the sauce and ragu.
We have the bitterness of the broccoli rabe,
the Parmigiano, the olive oil.
It’s like southern Italy to a T.
You saw everything being done, right.
The soffritto got emulsified, the sausage was browned.
We put everything together in,
that was like three minutes, right.
You just have the best ingredients you can get your hands on
and then yeah, you’re off the races.
It’s a hundred percent, you can easily do this.
Cheers.
I used to do this for, when I was in college,
I used to do these ragus
and always have like late night ragu
after we go have cocktails, you know,
and just everyone would come over to my house
and I just cook some big bowls of pasta with sausage ragu
and then bread to [speaks Italian].
And it’s like you become the spot, right.
Everyone wants to come over. All right.
We got Taco Bell. Taco Bell works too.