Make The Perfect Pork Ragu With Burnt Onions

I primarily use my pressure cooker for cooking large cuts of meat until they are so tender they fall apart with a glance. The appliance produces a wonderful pork roast but, if you cook that roast in a can of tomatoes, you get a transcendent ragu.

The juices from the meat mix with the plum tomatoes (and a bit of wine and garlic), creating hearty, scoopable sauce that was made for thick, sturdy noodles like pappardelle or radiatori. But, because pressure cookers don’t allow for a lot of browning, you have to develop those deep, roasted flavours before everything goes into the pot. This is not hard to do, you just need to burn some onions.

Burnt onions, as I have mentioned before, are one of the quickest, easiest ways to add a deep, umami-rich (but slightly bitter) hit of flavour to gravy, salad dressings, and sauces. I usually blend them into liquids to evenly disseminate their flavour but, thanks the high-pressure environment of a pressure cooker, the sliced and scorched alliums practically disintegrate while they cook with the pork. Pair that with tangy balsamic, smoky Tabasco, and some funky fish sauce, and you have a surprisingly complex ragu that tastes like it was roasted or simmered for hours. To make it, you will need.

• 1 approximately 1kg boneless pork shoulder, trussed as needed to create a uniform roast

• 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided

• 2 small white onions, sliced into thin half-moons

• 5 cloves of garlic, smashed and roughly chopped

• 1 tablespoon tomato paste

• 3/4 cup red wine

• 1 800mL can of whole plum tomatoes, with their juice

• 1 tablespoon fish sauce

• 1 tablespoon hot sauce (I like Tabasco)

• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

• 3 sprigs fresh oregano

• 3 sprigs fresh thyme

• 1 tablespoon butter

• 1 tablespoon flour

• 450g of your favourite pasta

Salt the pork shoulder liberally on all sides and set aside. Press the “Sauté” button on your pressure cooker and set it to its hottest setting. Add one tablespoon of olive oil to the insert and, once the pressure cooker display reads “HOT” (or equivalent) sear the roast to form a crust on each side, flipping only when it no longer sticks to the insert (this will mean a good crust has formed).

While the roast is searing, heat the other tablespoon of oil in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat. Season the onions with a couple of pinches of salt and, working in batches, cook them until they are nice and burnt.

Once the onions are burnt and the pork has a nice crust on all sides, remove the roast from the insert, set it aside, and add the onions to the pressure cooker. Add the garlic, and sauté for a couple minutes until golden brown and fragrant. Add the tomato paste, and cook until it turns a dark brick red.

If there is an appreciable amount of fond—those browned bits that stick to the bottom—in the onion sauté pan, splash about a quarter cup of your wine in there, scrape it up, and pour it over the onions and garlic. Add the remaining wine to the pressure cooker, scrape the bottom of the insert, then add the tomatoes. Crush the tomatoes with tongs, add the fish sauce, hot sauce, and vinegar. Tie the herbs together with a piece of kitchen twine, and chuck it in the pot.

Return the roast to the pressure cooker, pour some of the sauce on top of it, and close it all up. Cook under high pressure for 30 minutes per pound, followed by a manual release. Open the pot and let the sauce cool for a bit while you bring your (salted) pasta water to a boil. Using two forks—or a pair of clean kitchen scissors—shred the pork shoulder right in the pot.

If the sauce is a little thin (because moisture can’t escape from the pressure cooker), make a beurre manie by mashing the flour and butter together to form a paste, then add little bits of that paste to the hot sauce, stirring with each addition, until your sauce is as thick as you want it. Cook your pasta according to the package instructions, toss with ragu, and enjoy with Pecorino Romano, fresh basil, or both.