This dish can be described only with one word: EMOTION
ingredients for 4 servings (cost about 5 € pp)
- Salt
- 800 g sheep leg
- 500 g fresh pasta without eggs
- the solid part of a can with whole tomatoes
- 40 ml white wine
- 1/2 litre vegetable stock
- 1 large onion
- 2 larges carrots
- 20 first quality olives (non prepitted)
- A large bunch of fresh thyme
- EV olive oil
- parsley
- 50 g parmiggiano reggiano
Sheep is a great, great kind of meat. It is very cheap (I buy organic sheep without bones 9E per kg) and extremely tasty.
I had bought a kilo of sheep to prepare “verdett”, a dish for Puglia, with sheep or lamb and peas. But, what a pity, I didn’t find fresh peas, so I had to prepare something else.
During my daily walk on the Attica mountains I found abundant fresh thyme, I cut some and I started thinking what I could prepare. I then realized that I had never made a dish with sheep/lamb with olives, a very classic combination!!!!
So, when I returned home I started preparing the meat for the next day. What does it mean? That I salted well and I kept it in the fridge overnight. We must always pre-salt the meat, especially the tough one, like the sheep and the goat. After the pre-salting, the meat turns tender and easier to be prepared. The dish too. Let’ s make it together.
The day after we clean and pat it dry the meat. We cut the meat in large pieces and we brown it in olive oil. The browning must be light, otherwise the meat will become too dry, we just want to add some Maillard aromas to the whole preparation. We add the onion and the carrots, cut in large pieces and we continue for a while.
We deglaze with the wine, we add the stock and the thyme and we check the salt. We reduce the heat to minimum and we let the meat simmer for 3 or maybe more hours.
Meanwhile, we prepare the fresh pasta.
Don’t you remember how? Just read here our special article, the most complete on the web, about fresh pasta. If you don’t have the Marcato Reggina or other machine for rigatoni, just use dry ones.
About 30 minutes before estimated cooking time, we add the tomatoes and 15 minutes later the olives. There is absolutely no reason to add the tomatoes sooner, in fact we should avoid doing it, because they will create an acid environment which will tighten the meat and provoke a further delay. We check again the salt and we let simmer till the meat becomes very very tender.
We also have to make sure that the stock is concentrated to a sauce, thus, if the meat is ready and the sauce is still runny, we remove the solid parts from the pot, we raise the heat and we reduce the sauce. We add the parsley, finely minced the very last moment. We remove from the heat and we add some ground black pepper.
Meanwhile in a big pot we bring salted water to a boil. When ready, we cook the fresh rigatoni for 2 minutes or the dry rigatoni for 2minutes less than the al dente indicated time on the package.
We strain them and we transfer them in a big pan or wok with the sauce and some boiling water and we start to mantecare, which means continuously stirring the pasta and adding ladles of boiling water and parmiggiano cheese, till we create a creamy result.
We put in plates and we serve.
