Genovese sauce comes from my great grandmother’s hometown of Aquila, Italy. A town where she led a fabulous life of wealth and prominence that quickly ended at the sudden death of my great grandfather. Back then men still inherited everything and her oldest son refused to give his younger sisters a dowery. Doesn’t this sound like an Italian version of Pride and Prejudice? Well it kind of is.
My great grandmother packed up her four youngest children, all girls needing dowerys, and sailed away to America where she knew no one except her son, Delpho. He fled there a few years before her to escape his wife and “marry” his girlfriend. Not her favorite choice of sibling role model for the sisters, but he did help her find a house and a living in New York City that was not the bowery or the dreaded Lower East Side. There my great grandmother made a life for herself and her girls, eventually finding husbands for all of them. Her Genovese Sauce may have had a lot to do with that success.
So now I come to a terrible dilemma. How can I dare to revamp a recipe so entrenched in the history of my family? However, if I don’t do it, I can never eat it again. The original recipe calls for so much butter I could launch a ship. It is also chock full of high fodmap ingredients like white button and porcini mushrooms, onion and garlic. If I remove them, what could the sauce even taste like?
I was determined to try. If I can’t do it, then I can’t, but I love this sauce and want to try. To make this sauce a low fodmap Genovese sauce, I substitute sliced light green stems of spring onions along with chopped chives to replace the onion that is loaded with fodmaps.
Fortunately, this sauce always used garlic as an infusing element, so I can use garlic infused olive oil or skip it and use a mild olive oil.
Just a note for future use: in my family we almost always saute the garlic around in hot olive oil infusing the oil with garlic flavor, but then remove the cloves. That method is encouraged by Monash Univ. and in their guide they instruct readers how to infuse their own oil with garlic. Happily, I already knew. lol
I don’t think substituting the stems and chives for chopped onion affects the flavor of the sauce that much because the veal, carrots, celery and butter are so dominant and those ingredients (the celery is used in safe amounts) are safely low fodmap. Yay.
Today, Genovese sauce is again the star of several family recipes on my food blog, ibskitchn.com. It is now low fodmap Genovese Sauce thanks to the Monash University FODMAP App and guide.
I think that you will love this scrumptious pasta sauce and find it quite tolerable as well. When I reduced the amount of fat, eliminated white mushrooms, used chopped scallion stems or spring onion stems in place of chopped onions, and porcini mushrooms in acceptable amounts, the flavor remained, and yet I now had a low fodmap sauce.
So make this lovely pasta sauce when you want to impress your boss, make your boyfriend propose, or ask your husband for money. You WILL get what you want after serving pasta with Low Fodmap Genovese Sauce.
Ingredients:
6 or 7 veal cutlets
1 lb veal bones (optional) or a small veal roast, or 1 large veal shoulder chop, bone in or 2 veal shanks (like for osso bucco)
1 stick or 1 and 1/2 sticks of butter (Use far less to be safe)
2 tender ribs of celery with leaves, chopped fine
2 carrots, chopped fine
Bunch of scallions/spring onions – slice up/chop only the light green stems
Bunch of chives – chopped
1 pkg dried porcini mushrooms, soaked in 1/2 cup warm water, drained and chopped
2 cups water
Olive oil for browning
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
handful of shredded fresh basil (optional)
Butcher string to tie up the veal rolls
Directions:
Take out the carrots, celery, scallions and chives and place them on a large wooden chopping board. If you are using the dried porcini mushrooms, take them out of the package and follow the directions for soaking and draining them. Put your food processor near by and get out a large chopping knife and vegetable scraper.
Scrape the carrots, cut them in medium chunks and place in the bowl of the food processor. Slice the scallion light green stems and coarsely chop the chives. Place both in the food processor. Coarsely chop the tender stalks of celery hearts and the leaves and add them to the processor. Pulse the vegetables 3 0r 4 times until they are finely chopped, but not a paste.
Drain the porcini mushrooms into a small sieve held over an empty cup. Chop up the porcini mushrooms. Set aside. (I do not use the mushroom liquid because I think it contains fodmaps.)
Take out the veal cutlets and veal chop or veal shanks. Pat them dry with paper towels and season on all sides with sea salt and pepper. Roll up each cutlet and tie in the middle with string. Cut the string after knotting it. Salt and pepper the chop or shanks.
Put two or three tbsp butter and 1 tbsp olive oil in the dutch oven and heat over medium high heat until the butter is foaming and the oil is shimmering. Brown the veal rolls 3 or 4 at a time. Brown on one side, then turn and brown the other. (2 to 3 minutes per side). Take out the rolls and add more oil or butter if needed as you continue to brown all the meat on both sides. Place in a bowl.
Wipe out the dutch oven of extra oil. Add two more tbsp butter and 1 tbsp olive oil and heat until butter foams and oil is shimmering. Add the processed vegetables and saute until they have softened a bit and the scallion stems and chives have also softened a bit.(Ignore theonion in the pic. That is an old pic. Here I used the chopped scallion stems and not the white part.
Stir in the chopped mushrooms and stir the veggies together for a minute or two.
Add 1/2 stick butter and stir it into the vegetables until it is melted. (If you want to add more and can tolerate it, go ahead.) Add in the water. Put back the browned meats.Stir all together, bring to a simmer and then lower the heat to barely simmering. (You can also put this in a crock pot and cook on low for several hours or until the veal is very tender.)
Cover and simmer slowly for 30 minutes. Check tenderness of veal and see if it is cooking too fast. You do not want the water to boil away because adding more water weakens the flavor. Only add 1/4 cup water at a time. Keep simmering until the veal is tender. If the sauce seems too thin, add more butter and a bit more water.Then, simmer until veal is fork tender.(Today, I skip simmering on the stove and I use the crockpot method I mentioned above. It keeps the sauce from reducing too much and I can go and do other things while the veal is becoming tender in the crock pot.)
If you have boiled away the water and don’t know what to do, you can add some chicken stock to keep the liquid level at about two cups, but it might change the delicacy of the sauce; however, it will still taste delicious. If you doubled the recipe, then double the liquid too and follow the recipe.
When the veal is tender, turn off the heat. Taste for salt, and pepper. Sometimes I add fresh basil and other herbs to add more flavor, but that is up to you. When the sauce has cooled down a bit, you can either serve it over GF pasta , sprinkled with plenty of reggiano parmegiano cheese or chill in the fridge until dinner time.
Low Fodmap Genovese sauce freezes well and this recipe should be enough sauce for 1 lb of pasta. It also doubles well by using the same amount of meat, but doubling the butter, vegetables, and water, or at least that is how I do it.
Low Fodmap Genovese Sauce
Ingredients
- 6 or 7 thin veal cutlets, veal bones and a veal chop with bone in, or thin cutlets and a small veal roast, or the thin cutlets and two osso bucco pound cutlets betw sheets of waxed paper
- 1 bunch scallions and spring onions, light green stems only sliced
- 2 tender ribs of celery including the fresh green leaves finely chopped
- 1 pkg dried porcini mushrooms follow pkg directions for soaking
- 1 to 1 and 1/2 sticks organic butter
- 2 carrots, chopped fine
- 2 cups water
- 2 or 3 tbsp olive oil for browning
- 1 handful fresh basil thinly shredded (optional)
- Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- Butcher string to tie up the veal rolls
Instructions
- Get out a heavy dutch oven and place it on the stove. Put your olive oil and stick of butter by the stove and place the salt and pepper in small containers handy for seasoning as you go. Pour two cups water into a measuring cup and keep by the stove.
- Scrape the carrots, cut them in medium chunks and place in the bowl of the food processor. Peel and coarsely cut up the light green stems of scallions and spring onions (no white part) and place them in the food processor. Coarsely chop the tender stalks of celery hearts and the leaves and add them to the processor. Pulse the vegetables 3 or 4 times until they are finely chopped, but not a paste.
- Drain the porcini mushrooms (the ones you were soaking in 1/2 cup of water) into a small sieve held over an empty cup. Chop up the porcini mushrooms. Set aside.
- Take out the veal cutlets and veal chop or veal shanks. Pat them dry with paper towels and season on all sides with sea salt and pepper. Roll up each cutlet and tie in the middle with string. Cut the string after knotting it. Salt and pepper the chop or shanks.
- Put two or three tbsp butter and 1 tbsp olive oil in the dutch oven and heat over medium high heat until the butter is foaming and the oil is shimmering. Brown the veal rolls 3 or 4 at a time. Brown on one side, then turn and brown the other. (2 to 3 minutes per side). Take out the veal rolls and add more oil or butter if needed as you continue to brown all the meat on both sides. Place in a bowl.
- Wipe out the dutch oven of extra oil. Add two more tbsp butter and 1 tbsp olive oil and heat until butter foams and oil is shimmering. Add the chopped vegetables and saute until the celery, scallion stems and the carrots are slightly softened.
- Stir in the chopped mushrooms and stir them into the vegetable mixture.
- Add 1 stick butter and stir it into the vegetables until it is melted. Put back the browned meats.Stir all together, and add in the water. Stir everything together and taste for seasoning. Then bring to a simmer and then lower the heat to barely simmering. At this point I put the entire sauce into my crock pot, set it on low for several hours or until the veal is very tender.
- If you don't have a crock pot, half cover the pot and simmer on low until the veal is tender - anywhere from 35 min to an hour or more. Add a bit of water each time you check for tenderness. If at the end the sauce seems too little, add chicken stock to make it at least two cups of sauce. The crock pot keeps it from reducing too much, so that's why it's my favorite method.
- When the veal is tender, turn off the heat. Place the sauce in plastic or ceramic containers and chill in the fridge until dinner time. Reheat and serve over GF penne or other favorite GF pasta. It is also good over risotto.
- Sprinkle grated parmesan cheese (preferably reggiano) over the top. This sauce freezes well and is enough sauce for 1 lb of pasta. It also doubles well by using the same amount of meat, but doubling the butter, vegetables, and water, or at least that is how I do it.
