A dedicated Bon Appetit subscriber (and recipe maker), it wasn’t until last month (when I saw foodie friend Dan’s Goodside’s pork chop) that I noticed they encourage you to “Cook the Cover” and then feature some of the recipes. Given how delicious their February cover looked, I had to give it a go! I adapted the recipe to fit to the ingredients I had on hand, swapping out the ground pork for ground turkey, as well as cutting most of the ingredients in half. I should also mention, that at 5:00PM, when I was just about finished cooking the ragu (or so I thought), I noticed it’s supposed to simmer for 4 hours…!!! Well I sure as heck wasn’t about to wait until 9:00PM to eat the delicious smelling ragu in front of me! So I simmered it until the pasta was done boiling and enjoyed my shortened version. Even though I didn’t cook it nearly as long as the recipes suggests, it had great flavour. If you’re in a rush, and don’t want to simmer it for 4 hours, don’t worry, it will still taste great!
Rigatoni with Spicy Ground Turkey Ragu
Ingredients
- 1/2 onion chopped
- 1 carrot chopped
- 1 celery stalk chopped
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1 tsp oregano
- Dash of red pepper flakes
- 1/4 cup flat-leaf parsley
- 14 oz. canned pureed tomatoes
- 1/8 cup olive oil
- 1/2 pound 230g mild Italian sausage
- 1/2 pound 230g ground turkey (or pork)
- Salt & pepper
- 1 tbsp tomato paste
- 3-4 servings rigatoni pasta
- Parmesan cheese
Instructions
- Begin by combining onion, celery, garlic, oregano, red pepper flakes, and parsley in food processor, until evenly chopped.
- In a pan on medium heat, add your olive oil.
- While pan is heating, remove casing from sausage.
- Once pan has heated, add sausage, cooking 4-5 minutes until browned.
- Add ground turkey, frying until nearly cooked, add salt & pepper.
- Transfer sausage, and turkey to a bowl.
- In the same pan, turn it up to medium-high heat, adding vegetable mixture once heated, cooking 8-10 minutes, until vegetables begin to turn a golden colour.
- In a bowl, stir 1 tablespoon tomato paste, with 1 cup of water, adding to vegetables (after they have cooked for 8-10 minutes).
- Simmering until nearly all liquid has evaporated.
- Add sausage, and turkey to pan, along with pureed tomato, and one cup of water.
- Simmer until sauce is no longer runny, about 10-15 minutes.
- Once sauce is done reducing, add salt & pepper to taste.
- Boil pasta for about 12 minutes until desired tenderness.
- Place pasta in serving dishes, top with ragu, and sprinkle shredded parmesan cheese to top it off.
The great thing about ragu, is you can cook it days ahead of time, in fact, with recipes like this, the flavour typically becomes even better after sitting in the fridge for a day, allowing the flavours to settle in! If you wish to follow the exact Bon Appetit recipe, then check it out here.
Enjoy!
Bob
Gorgeous clean styling, I love it!
Thanks Katie! I was trying to replicate the styling in Bon Appetit!