My Sicilian grandfather (Nonno), Ignazio Cangialosi, was an excellent cook. Although he made his living working in a factory foundry, he sidelined by cooking for Italian weddings in my hometown of Rockford, Illinois. For a short time he even served as head chef in my Uncle Paul’s restaurant, where one of his specialties, Nonno’s Unique Italian Meat Sauce for pasta, was an enormous hit. I’ve never tasted the likes of this sauce anywhere else, not even in Sicily.
Whether this was a secret family recipe I never knew. I falsely assumed it was common in the Palermo region from which he immigrated to America, but in the many times I’ve visited that region I have never encountered this sauce.
There is nothing exotic about Nonno’s Unique Italian Meat Sauce. It’s simply cooked in a different way than the more common method of beginning with ground meat. Rather than using ground meat, it employs pieces of round steak that are browned, and then cooked in the tomato sauce. When the meat has cooked to a very tender stage, it is then ground together with parmigiano cheese.
The end result is a richer, silkier sauce that offers a very different taste experience. Because the recipe was passed down to me from my mother and I am the only remaining member of my immediate family, I wished to share it with others. Traditionally it required a meat grinder, but I’ve found a food processor a good modern substitute.
For the Meat
Dry the slices of 1/4-inch-thick round steak thoroughly on paper towels. Sauté the slices in olive oil in a 5-6-quart Dutch oven or kettle until nicely browned. Remove the slices.
Brown the round steak.
For Nonno’s Unique Italian Meat Sauce
Using the same pan, make the salsa pomodoro. If the oil from the meat has burnt, discard it and add fresh olive oil.
Sauté a chopped red onion, a small shredded carrot, chopped Italian parsley, fresh thyme and rosemary, and some peperoncino in the olive oil until the onion is softened and golden.. Add the minced garlic and sauté for a minute or two. This is called a soffritto.
Make the soffritto.
Most chefs sauté the garlic with the onions, a procedure I’ve never understood because inevitably the garlic tends to develop an unpleasant burnt taste by the time the onions are golden.
Break up the canned whole tomatoes. I like to do this with a potato masher.
Crush the tomatoes.
Add the crushed tomatoes, plus the juice from the cans, to the soffritto.
Add the tomatoes to the soffritto.
Cook the sauce.
If you have fresh basil, add the chopped leaves and salt and black pepper to taste. NOTE: All the fresh herbs are optional in the recipe, though they add much to the flavor of the sauce.
Add the meat slices to the tomato sauce and simmer gently for two hours or until the slices are very tender.
Add meat to the sauce.
Taste the sauce for salt and pepper, and add a bit of sugar only if the tomatoes are very sour.
Remove the steak slices and cut into small pieces.
Cut up the meat.
Using the fine grinding plate, pass them through a meat grinder, along with the Parmigiano chunks. Alternatively, you can pulse the cooked meat a few times in a food processor, until fine ground, which is what I did here because my meat grinder broke down.
Process the meat.
Don’t turn it into a paste. For this method, use pre-grated Parmigiano and mix it with the ground meat.
Small pastas, such as ditali, tubbeti, or shells are ideal. Cook the pasta in several quarts of salted water until al dente. Drain. Return the pasta to the pan with the meat, cheese, and a cup or two of the tomato sauce to warm very gently, covered.
Heat the meat, cheese, and pasta.
Serve Nonno’s Unique Italian Meat Sauce in bowls with additional sauce and grated cheese. Serves 8 to 10.
