Tuccu (fresh Genoese meat sauce) 250g

This Tuccu alla genovese is a fresh sauce ready to season your favourite ravioli and pasta. Tuccu (or tocco) is a typical Genoese meat sauce that is prepared by cooking a whole piece of meat (the tocco) for many hours: usually the perfilo is used, which is a cut from the neck of the cattle; it does not need fine cuts but is chosen according to its yield after long cooking. 

There are two schools of thought in Genoa on what to do with the whole "tocco": some prefer to use the whole meat for the sauce, while in some Genoese families there is the custom of eating the piece of meat that has been cooked in the sauce as a second course, because the "tocco" of meat during cooking must not flake off too much anyway. We offer you the richer version, the one that in addition to the tomato sauce you also find pieces of meat!

Which pasta is served with tuccu genovese

The classic and traditional dish with tuccu is definitely 'raieu au tuccu' or Genoese ravioli, which are made with a mixed filling of meat and vegetables, and then seasoned with meat sauce: this is the perfect combination when it comes to stuffed pasta. On the other hand, if you want to try tuccu genovese with another type of pasta, then our advice is to use it to season fresh pasta such as taglierini genovesi, especially taglierini verdi (which is also nice to see on the plate). 

Dried pasta can also be seasoned with meat tuccu, and historically in the Genoese area, corzetti della Val Polcevera were used, which are not to be confused with croxetti del Levante (corzetti della Val Polcevera are shaped like a solid eight, while croxetti resemble a coin). Corzetti were a family pasta format that unfortunately is less and less common nowadays: 19th-century cooks tell us that at the time they were served with a meat sauce or with the famous 'sugo di magro somigliante al grasso' (a red vegetable sauce but very tasty because it was butter-based).

Niccolò Paganini's recipe for ravioli al tocco genovese

Such a great lover of raieu au tuccu was the Genoese genius musician Niccolò Paganini that he sent his personal recipe to his friend Luigi Germi. The original of this 1839 letter is preserved in Washington at the Library of Congress, so we are lucky enough to still be able to read Paganini's version of tuccu.

"For a pound and a half of flour two pounds of good lean beef to make the sauce. Put some buttermilk in the pan, then a little onion, well chopped, to fry a little. Put the beef in and let it take on a little colour. And to obtain a consistent juice, take a few grasps of flour and slowly sow it into the juice so that it takes on colour. Then some tomato conserve is taken, dissolved in water, and this water is poured into the flour in the saucepan and stirred to dissolve it further, and lastly, some dried clams are placed in it, well chopped and crushed; and the sauce is made..."