Is it gravy or is it sauce?

Growing up as a second-generation Italian, I learn to cook at my grandmother and mother’s side in the oldfashion way-from scratch. My grandmother would give me family recipes, half in Italian, half in English and with no measurements. She would say “add a little of this and a little of that and you mix it until it feels right”. I quickly learned when it “felt right”, whether it was macaroni, meatballs, or cookies.

Sunday was the day my mother would make the gravy for the macaroni. In my family it was always called macaroni – not pasta. I would wake up to the smells of the sausage and meat browning in the pan before the tomatoes were added and slow cooked for hours. It was a family tradition to have macaroni served with meatballs, sausage and braciola for our Sunday meal. It is still my husband, Sal’s favorite Sunday dinner.

Now to the question of whether it is a gravy or sauce. In a glossary of Italian cooking terms, Sugo – is a sauce or gravy, when based on cooked meat; it is also called ragu and is most often used with pasta. On the other hand, Tomato Sauce is described as a red sauce generally flavored with garlic and spices served on pasta.

So, to make our Sunday gravy, we brown sausage, pork, and beef, deglaze the pan to get all the meat drippings to favor the tomatoes, add tomato paste as a thickener and slow cook it, it is gravy. On the other hand to make a sauce, we sauté, garlic, spices, onions then add tomatoes and quick cook it without adding a thickener, and it’s sauce! At least that’s the way it is in our family.

How to make gravy

Ingredients: 1 lb. Italian sausage (hot or sweet), a piece of pork and or a piece of beef. Wine or water to deglaze the pan, 3 cans (2 lb.3oz) of Italian plum shape tomatoes, 2 small cans of
tomato paste, crushed fresh garlic cloves, basil, and parsley (fresh or dried), red pepper to taste.

Method: In a large saucepan, brown the sausage, pork, and beef in a small amount of Olive oil (note the amount of oil depends on how lean the sausage is). Keep turning the meat around to brown it on all sides and crusty on the bottom of the pan. Add the garlic and red pepper, and then deglaze the pan with either red wine or water, making sure you get all the crusty meat drippings loose.

Puree the plum tomatoes in a blender with fresh basil and parsley and add to the pan, stirring to incorporate all the drippings. Simmer over a low flame until the tomatoes start to change to darker color, then add the tomato paste, with equal amounts of water and stir. Once the paste has dissolved, you can add the meatballs to the gravy and simmer over a low flame for several hours. (Stirring the gravy every
so often to make sure it is not sticking).