Dining With The Stars!

Actor / Cookbook Author Stanley Tucci loves to talk about food – and I love to watch him do it!

I’m telling you this because Jo’s terrific cookbook club asked us to cook with a celebrity cookbook and boy did I! I will share the link to Jo’s great website so you can see all of the food on display, but for me, it was time to get cooking Tucci-style!

I love this cookbook: Tucci shares great stories of growing up with food, and how his family taught him the importance of a meal…for this challenge, I decided to make a dish that ultimately was a two-parter!

This is the Tucci’s traditional Ragu sauce, passed down for generations. Let’s get cooking!

1/4c Olive Oil

1 Lb. stewing Beef

1 Lb. Pork Spareribs

1 cup chopped onion

3 cloves garlic – ha! I used a dozen!

1/2 cup red wine

1 6 oz can tomato paste

1-1/2 cups warm water

8 cups canned whole plum, tomatoes – pureed or chopped

3 fresh basil leaves

1 tbl oregano

First, add the olive oil to your pan and then the stewing meat…salt and pepper to taste and get a good sear on it, about ten minutes total…it sounds great when you do it…listen:

Oh, and it smells great too! Remove the meat and add your ribs…I used pork – same process:

Set the meat aside and cook up the rest of the ingredients, beginning with the diced onion and garlic…I used the same pan:

From there, it’s a matter of adding the tomatoes, tomato paste, warm water and red wine…here’s how much fun it is – and don’t forget to have a glass of wine while you are cooking!

Now just simmer it for 2-3 hours – I covered mine for 30 minutes, stirred then left it slightly ajar for 30 minutes, etc…it smells great and looks like this:

We will finish that in a minute but now it’s time to make some Stanley Tucci Meatballs!

Here are your ingredients:

2 slices of dry Italian bread

1 cup warm water

1/2 lb ground beef

2 tbl chopped fresh Italian parsley

2 cloves garlic – ha! I used ten!

1 large egg

5 tbl finely grated pecorino romano cheese

salt and pepper to taste

2 tbl olive oil

Put the bread in a bowl and add the warm water…let it absorb for 5 minutes. Then, it’s just an easy matter of combining the meat, parsley, garlic egg, cheese and salt & pepper to taste….use your hands like this:

Warm the olive oil in a frying pan and fry the meatballs…should take about 8 minutes total…now, Stanley says a meatball that sticks to the pan isn’t ready to turn, but I found my meatballs didn’t agree with him!

Things got a bit ugly right here for me in the pan – take a look:

So, the meatballs were a bit problematic, but I got enough of them to stay formed – I went back to the recipe and realized I hadn’t used enough ground beef, making the overall mixture a bit too wet….shame on me!

Now, back to the Ragu: it was an easy process of using tongs to separate the pork from the bones and the meat itself flaked into small pieces as well…here’s a look:

I made some Bucatini, plated it, then added the Ragu and Meatballs…here’s how it turned out:

And voila, here is the end result:

Stanley Tucci’s Ragu with Meatballs!

Well, it was delicious! The meatballs held up enough, even with my “meat shortage” issue, and the Ragu was so rich and flavorful…and so much that I froze a big portion for later!

Nothing beats freshly grated parmesan romano cheese, and the fresh basil was a delicious bite as well…I feel pretty good about this effort!

I shared the recipe on Jo’s cookbook club site – see all of the recipes submitted here:

https://brookfordkitchendiaries.wordpress.com

I love taking part in these cooking efforts, and I have cooked a number of Tucci’s family recipes before, like this one:

I made his family’s great Chicken Cacciatore recipe and you can see it here:

My wife had Tucci on her talk show and showed him this montage of photos:

That’s me cooking his incredible Timpano recipe – and he approved!

See what an undertaking this dish is – and why it is so worth it! Click on the story for the recipe and process to make your own “pasta pie!”

I became obsessed with Tucci’s cooking when he made a dish on his CNN travel series.

How obsessed?

THIS OBSESSED!

I made “Spaghetti alla Nerano” with some added “Zoodles” as well – click here for this amazingly delicious recipe!

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Thanks to Jo for hosting another cookbook club and thank you for following along on my culinary journey. If you like the story, share it with friends on social media! Thanks!

Categories: 52 In 22!, Bite Eat Swallow, Bite! Eat! Repeat!, Chef memoirs, Cookbooks, Eat This!, Fine Dining, Food, Food Writing, Recipes, World's Wildest Food

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