sunday sauce

When my mother was a little girl she watched her grandmother Maria make sauce every week. Two weeks ago I helped Mom make sauce, except this time, I brought along a pen and some paper to write up an "official recipe" for what a lot of Italian cookbooks call "Sunday gravy."

Let's see if this makes any sense:


Heat stainless steel pot at medium heat.

Wipe inside of pot with vegetable oil.

Add three cloves of chopped garlic and six, small pork neck bones.

[At this point, you may wish to add other meats, like braciola or Italian sausage. Turn and remove once browned.]

Add six cans of tomato sauce -- three puree, three crushed tomato, adding one quarter to one half of a can of water for each can.

Add one quarter of a cup red wine. Add one teaspoon of chopped basil, oregano, and parsley.

Add one table spoon of salt.

Cover.

At this point, you leave the sauce to cook while you prepare the meatballs in a large mixing bowl.

Mix two slices of bread with a half cup of milk. Add three cups of breadcrumbs and two cups of oatmeal. Add four and a quarter pounds of chopped meat.

[Mom used a mix of different chopped meats]

Chop one normal sized onion. Add one tablespoon of onion to the sauce. Add two tablespoons of salt and half a teaspoon of pepper to the bowl and mix.

[After mixing with her hands, Mom hollowed out the center of the mix where she added the following ingredients.]

Add two or three eggs and one quarter of pecorino romano cheese. Mix. Add two ladles of tomato sauce to the meatball mix again. Roll meatballs.

Here is where these two recipes come together.

Add braciola/Italian sausage to the sauce.

Add meatballs to the sauce.

Boil on medium heat for several hours.

It's actually recommended to make "Sunday sauce" on a Saturday afternoon and let it sit over night before serving it. The sauce is quite handy, you can recycle it for use in various pastas as well as for making lasagna.