Home-made tomato sauce

Veal and/or lamb, and/or pork ribs (occasionally chicken is also added to the sauce)
Sausage

To make meatballs

Ground veal (or beef)
Egg
Parmesan cheese
Plain or flavored breadcrumbs

Make meatballs.

Braise the veal, pork ribs and meatballs. Prepare tomato sauce in the usual fashion (adding the braised meat from the start). Stew meat and home-made meatballs in the tomato sauce for about 40 minutes.



Serve stewed meat after the pastas with salad.

Nowadays this dish is served generally three times a week in most first-generation Italian homes, but prior to World War II meat was a delicacy reserved for special occasions. In Molise, Italy, chicken was often stewed in tomato sauce, but in North America few immigrants did so (They might have in the 1950s, but after the 1970s fewer and fewer did so). On Easter Sunday lamb chops would be stewed in the tomato sauce and served to guests. Photo: Mary Melfi

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