Slow-cooked beef ragout recipe | Sainsbury`s Magazine (2024)

FAQs

What is the difference between ragout and Ragu? ›

The difference between ragu and ragout isn't really that much ragu is an Italian pasta sauce that is usually made with minced meat or vegetables and ragout is a French style stew that would normally be found on-top of a Paris style mash but the Italians would do this on-top of polenta.

A ragout is essentially the same as a stew, except that most recipes for ragout are originally French, and often the meat and vegetables are cut into smaller pieces than in a typical stew. Ragouts vary in flavor and ingredients — you can skip the meat and make a vegetarian ragout, for example.

The basic method of preparation involves slow cooking over a low heat. The main ingredients are many; ragouts may be prepared with or without meat, a wide variety of vegetables may be incorporated, and they may be more or less heavily spiced and seasoned.

I use fairly inexpensive braising or stewing steak – often known as chuck steak, which comes from the forequarter. Usually, this consists of parts of the neck, shoulder blade, and upper arm. It's a tough but very flavorful cut of meat.

A ragout is a strongly flavoured stew of meat or vegetables or both.

1. : well-seasoned meat and vegetables cooked in a thick sauce.

noun. casserole [noun] the food cooked in a casserole. I've made a lamb casserole for dinner. stew [noun] (a dish of) stewed meat etc.

Ragout, on the other hand, is a slow-cooked French-style stew that can be made with meat or fish and vegetables — or even just vegetables. You can eat it on its own, or with a starch like polenta, couscous, or pasta.

Whisk a teaspoon of flour in a little cold water to make a slurry, then stir into the stew as it's cooking. Don't add dry flour directly to the stew as it may clump. After adding the slurry, bring the stew to boil. This will cook out the flour taste and allow the starch to swell.

If the beef is still tough after 2.5 hours of cooking, it needs to cook for longer. Make sure the sauce is still bubbling very gently (you should be able to see bubbles appearing in the sauce; if not, the heat is too low and the beef will take a lot longer to cook).

Can you overcook a ragu? ›

It's almost impossible to overcook the ragu unless you are using very lean meat. I salt almost all my food, except for pasta cooking water, at the very end. Adjust salt to taste accordingly and serve with your favorite pasta.

That process should take about an hour, then the rest of the work will be simmering your ragù. You will want to simmer it a minimum of 2 hours but I prefer at least 3, if not 3 1/2. The magic of this sauce is the slow cooking, and using the best ingredients that you can find.

You can pour a ragu over just about any starch. A bowl of rice, grits, polenta, toasted bread, grains like farro, and even mashed potatoes would be fine. If you think about it, dishes like shepherd's pie are just a reverse ragu, starch on top of the stewed meat and veggies, so there's no shame in reversing that order.

Even though both are considered meat sauces and are thusly chunky, ragù is more like a thick tomato sauce with recognizable bits of ground beef within it. Bolognese, though, is creamier and thicker because it is made with milk. It is not considered to be a tomato sauce.

Ragù is an Italian meat-based pasta sauce with a little bit of tomato/tomato paste (but not overwhelmingly tomato like a marinara would be). Think bolognese. What is this? Ragout, on the other hand, is a thick and chunky French stew, meat or veg-based and cooked long and slow until the flavors are rich and robust.

In Italian cuisine, ragù (Italian: [raˈɡu], from French ragoût) is a meat sauce that is commonly served with pasta. An Italian gastronomic society, Accademia Italiana della Cucina, documented several ragù recipes. The recipes' common characteristics are the presence of meat and the fact that all are sauces for pasta.