Sunday Gravy - traditional AmerItal meat-laden tomato sauce

Cooks Illustrated knocks it out of the park again with the recipe for "Sunday Gravy" - the tomato sauce that italian immigrant families (would,still) make for Sunday dinner, with multiple cuts of meat in a dense, meaty tomato sauce. The amount of meat that they could afford to buy maybe once a year back home they now could buy once a week. So they did.

According to the CI article it's traditionally a multi-day process; they wanted to see if they could make a version that could be completed in a few hours that retained what made it so special. According to Ernie, who grew up eating this kind of food, they did. I had a strong sense memory of my mother's italian friend bringing over a big pot of sauce for us to eat.

(For those who don't know, Cooks Illustrated uses a more scientific methodology to find the "best" recipes. If you're a food geek, reading about the process is fascinating.)

I don't usually repost recipes from pay sites, but this is SO good I'm breaking that rule.

The road to yumminess starts here.....

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Enjoy!