The crowning glory of traditional Italian-American Sunday family dinners, Italian Sunday sauce contains just the right blend of meats simmered until falling off the bone in a garlicky tomato-olive oil mixture. Picking the right meats to use in Italian Sunday sauce requires knowing which kinds of meats complement each other in flavor without overpowering the taste of other sauce ingredients and which meats profit from steady stove-top braising.
Instructions
1. Prefer bone-in meats. While it can get messy to remove the meat from the bones once the sauce is finished cooking, meats still on the bone cook up more tender and succulent than boneless cuts.
2. Plan on mixing a variety of meats. Select an equal amount of beef, veal and pork.
3. Choose beef that is cut from the juicier bottom chuck or shoulder rather than from the drier round. Beef short ribs or shank also make excellent choices for Italian Sunday sauce because of their ability to tenderize after long, slow simmering.
4. Select pork from the shoulder or butt. Also excellent for Italian Sunday sauce are baby back or regular spare ribs and country ribs still on the bone. Pork from the loin contains very little fat and remains dry and stringy even after braising.
5. Pick veal from the shoulder blade or bone-in shanks. Reserve veal from the loin or top round for cutlets rather than Italian Sunday sauce because they are too mild in flavor and dry out after more than just a few minutes of cooking.
6. Buy a variety of bones for Italian Sunday sauce. Veal, beef and pork neck bones not only boost the overall meaty flavor of the sauce but also provide enough natural gelatin to thicken the sauce naturally.
Tags: Italian Sunday, Italian Sunday sauce, Sunday sauce, Sunday sauce, from loin, from shoulder, rather than
