My maternal grandmother’s name was Agape, which means love. Like my mother, she was an excellent cook that could make her own phyllo, made spoon sweets out of anything you gave her, liqueurs, amazing vegetarian (ladera) dishes and all the Greek classics.
I recently picked up some Greek ingredients from BuyGreek.shop and picked up some Makvel farfalle. My yiayia would call them “petaloudes” aka butterflies. She made “her makaronada” using this pasta shape and the sauce had less “tomato” than your usual meat sauce.
Some tomato paste was used and although not visible when looking at the sauce, it does add lots of flavour to this delicious meat sauce. The other yiayia twist was her addition of parsley in the sauce.
There’s also some whole allspice, bay leaves and a pinch of cinnamon at the end. You can top with your favourite grated cheese but my family’s fave is grated Kefalotyri cheese (sheep’s milk).
My YiaYia’s Meat Sauce
Course: Main, Meat u0026amp; Poultry4-8
servings30
minutes40
minutesIngredients
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 cups finely diced white onion
3 cloves of garlic, minced
2lbs. lean ground beef (or veal)
1/2 cup dry white wine
4 Tbsp. tomato paste
3 bay leaves
5-6 whole allspice
sea salt and fresh ground pepper
1/2 cup finely chopped fresh parsley
4 tsp. dried Greek oregano
pinch of ground cinnamon
Boiled farfalle pasta
grated Kefalotyri cheese
Directions
- In a large skillet, add your olive oil and bring up to a medium heat. Add your onions and garlic and sweat for 10 minutes or until translucent.
- Add your ground beef, turn heat up to high and break up meat with a wooden spoon while it’s browning.
bay leaves and turn the heat to high and stir the contents to brown the meat. - As soon as your meat has browned and most of the liquid is gone, add your wine and reduce until the liquid is almost gone.
- Add your tomato paste, bay leaves, allspice and enough hot water to just cover the meat., Simmer uncovered for about 30-40 minutes or until it becomes thick. Add salt and pepper to taste.
- Take off the heat, add oregano, parsley and a pinch of cinnamon.
- Serve with petaloudes/farfalle and grate lots of Kefalotyri cheese on top.
