Mostaccioli with pork shoulder ragu

I've been making meat sauces for years, but only now -- after two months as an apprentice at Oliveto -- have I learned some of the secrets behind a superlative ragu.

A ragu is a basic meat sauce for pasta. The first authentic version I tried was years ago, in Emilia-Romagna, the region of Italy that invented the classic Bolognese sauce.

That first ragu was bold and brooding -- much like a Pavarotti opera. The sauce was entangled in a nest of perfectly cooked tagliatelle, with the flavor infused into the noodle.

Numerous cookbooks offer suggestions on making a Bolognese sauce and other forms of ragu. Yet nearly all of these recipes, in my opinion, are flawed. Most suggest cooking a mixture of diced onion, carrots and celery before adding your meat to brown it. The sauce that results tends to be lifeless or, even worse, infused with chunks of burnt vegetables.

Vegetables sweating on top of meat as the meat brown

At Oliveto, the chefs have reversed the sequence. First they brown the meat and then allow the vegetables to steam, or "sweat," on top of the meat. This process produces a dark layer of caramelized meat solids at the bottom of the pan -- a foundation of flavor. This foundation, or "fond" as the chefs call it, is then deglazed by the natural juices of the vegetables when added on top. This is allowed to cook down so the fond is rebuilt and deglazed two or three times.

Paul Bertolli, the former head chef at Oliveto, describes the technique in his 2003 book, "Cooking By Hand." Bertolli's successor, Paul Canales, who had a role in developing this technique, has continued to refine and perfect it since becoming executive chef.

Cooking a ragu in this manner is not difficult, but it cannot be whipped out in an hour or two. A ragu is truly slow food -- time-tested and refined by Italian grandmothers over many centuries.

Ragu ready for a long simmer, after broth and tomato paste have been added

Ragu for pasta

Makes: 8-10 servings of sauce

Ingredients:
2 pounds ground meat (Beef, pork or equal amounts of both. For beef, try ground chuck or get adventurous with ground hanger steak, beef cheeks, etc. For the pig, try ground pork shoulder.)
4 medium yellow onions
5 stalks celery
5 carrots
4 tablespoons finely chopped fresh sage
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh oregano
6 cups dark chicken or veal stock
½ cup white wine
½ cup high-quality tomato paste
1 cup cream (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:

1. Dice the onions, celery and carrots into a mirepoix -- cubes smaller than 1/4 inch in size. As you are dicing the vegetables and mincing the fresh herbs, start cooking your meat. Use a heavy bottomed Dutch oven or stew pot. This is essential. The bottom of the pan has to be thick and heavy enough to brown the meat, without scorching it.

2. Use high heat to start your browning process. But keep an eye on it, and adjust the flame accordingly. It’s okay for the meat to stick and brown, but you don't want it to blacken or burn.

3. After you have built an even layer of fond on the bottom, toss your vegetables on top of the meat. Leave them there for at least 15 minutes, allowing them to release their juices to the bottom of the pan.

4. Give your meat and vegetable a rigorous stir with a wooden spoon, and scrape up the fond layer that has now been deglazed by the vegetables.

5. Turn up heat slightly, and allow this to cook down and brown again, then add a shot of wine -- no more than a cup. Stir and scrape.

6. Allow this to cook down again. When browned, add a cup of stock. Repeat the process and add your tomato paste, diluted with a half cup of stock.

7. Watch your ragu carefully at this point. The addition of tomato paste could lead to scorching. Keep the heat up, but stir it regularly as the fond starts to reform. When it is nice and brown, but not scorched, add two or three cups of stock -- enough to make it slightly more soupy than you'd want for a sauce.

8. At this point, your ragu should have a lovely, brownish-red color. Bring it to a boil and then turn down to a simmer. Allow it to simmer for two to four hours, stirring occasionally and adding more stock, if necessary.

9. Before serving, you have the option of adding cream -- as much or as little as you want. Too much cream will dilute the intensity of the sauce, so be judicious at first.

10. You can take this basic sauce in many different directions. Add minced porcini mushrooms early in the cooking for an earthier flavor, or cinnamon or nutmeg to give it a spicy edge. Use different combinations of fresh herbs.

11. The final step, of course, is marrying the ragu with the pasta. Don't just ladle it on top. Cook your pasta just short of al dente, then mix it thoroughly in a skillet with an appropriate amount of sauce and then serve it immediately. Sprinkle some Parmesan cheese on top, and you will be ready to sing.

This is what ragu should look like when finished

It's 4 p.m. on a typical afternoon at Oliveto, and chefs and interns are hurriedly chopping vegetables, stirring pots, de-boning fish and preparing for that night's dinner service, which starts in 90 minutes.
Service people are rushing through the kitchen, carrying glassware or trays of olives. Dishwashers are trying to return saucepans to overhead hooks, without dropping one on someone's head.

It's a frenetic dance that occurs daily at the Oakland restaurant, and to add to the frenzy, it comes with a soundtrack. Many afternoons, Chef Paul Canales blasts acid jazz from the boom box. Nothing like some mind-bending music to sharpen your focus.

For the last two months, I've been part of this dinner troupe, as a stagehand -- a chef apprentice. Starting in April, I took a leave from my job as an editorial writer and columnist for The Sacramento Bee to intern at Oliveto, an Italian restaurant in Rockridge.

It's been a humbling transition. Until April, I worked in a cushy office and shadowed the power players in California's capitol. Now I'm on my feet all day in a hot, windowless kitchen, taking orders from young sous chefs.

Yet in the realm of unpaid sabbaticals, this one can't be beat. Anyone with an interest in food and cooking needs to work in a restaurant, particularly one like Oliveto. Concepts that once seemed so exotic and unattainable -- curing salami, turning out trays of handmade ravioli -- now seem within my grasp.

In recent weeks, I've filleted fresh mackerel, prepared soft shell crabs, cut up and cured pork belly for pancetta and braised porcini mushrooms for cannelloni, which I later rolled by hand.

I've also improved my knife skills. Dicing dozens of onions and carrots, day after day, helps in that regard.
That said, my initial performance was far from stellar. In one of his first assignments -- a test, perhaps? -- Chef Canales asked me to "turn" a potato. This involved peeling a small spud with a sharp paring knife, turning the potato with my left hand.

Within a few minutes, I had managed to insert the knife tip into my left thumb. Blood was running out. As I moved to the sink to wash and bandage the wound, I noticed a faded photocopy on the wall that offered instructions on dealing with an amputated finger.

"Reattachment is always possible," the sheet said. "Stop the bleeding and place the lonely piece in a wet towel..."

Yes, it was one of those "What am I doing here?" moments. But I hung in there. Before starting my apprenticeship, I had read Bill Buford's book "Heat," and recalled that Buford had stabbed himself within days of starting at one of Mario Batali's restaurants.

Oliveto, founded more than 20 years ago, has a long history of training interns, even those who are initially inept. Like other high-end kitchens, the restaurant's menu is labor intensive, especially in the spring and summer months, when farmers and suppliers deliver boxes of artichokes, beans and other produce to the kitchen.

Interns provide this labor for free. In exchange, they pick up tips, training and contacts they'll never get at culinary school. And if they work hard and show promise, they may get a shot at a paying job in the kitchen, should one open up.

People ask me: Is this just a temporary gig? Are you contemplating a career change?

I don't know. My presumption is that I will return to my newspaper job when my six-month stint is over. But I have to admit, the life of a chef is alluring, even with the absurdly low pay. "It gets under your skin," says Canales, who started interning at Oliveto 15 years ago after leaving a corporate telecom job.

Since April, I've been keeping a personal blog, which is largely focused on my day-to-day experience as a kitchen apprentice. For "Bay Area Bites," my posts will be more focused on classic techniques of Italian cooking, and tips and recipes I’ve picked up from working at Oliveto.

Here is one thing I've learned: There is no "magic" to preparing superlative food. The artistry that arrives on your plate at the best restaurants is not prepared by Houdini.

What separates great chefs from good ones is training, practice, creativity, attention to detail and a passion for the food they are preparing. All of these are within reach of home chefs -- those who prefer to do their cooking in more sedate settings, without a soundtrack.

Photo of a mackerel, from the Monterey Bay, right before I filleted it for that night's dinner menu. Photo by Stuart Leavenworth