From Nonnas · 2025 · Reconstructed
Nonna's Sunday Gravy
Serve when
The dish Joe never quite nails — serve it low and slow, and don't tell anyone if it's not quite your nonna's either.
In the movie
Theatrical
- 00:03:06 A childhood memory: young Joey is asked if he wants to come watch his nonna make the gravy — the ritual that anchors every Sunday of his childhood.
- ~00:31:31 Grown and grieving, Joe admits he's gotten close on other dishes, but not this one: 'it's my nonna's Sunday gravy... I really wish I could figure that one out.'
Sunday gravy is the dish the whole film measures itself against. It opens as a childhood ritual — a kid invited to watch, not yet old enough to help — and it resurfaces as an adult ache: Joe can approximate almost everything else from his nonna's kitchen, but this is the one that keeps slipping past him. The gap between "close" and "right" is exactly what Enoteca Maria is built to close — not by Joe finally cracking the recipe himself, but by handing the stove back to women who never lost it in the first place.
Ingredients
Method
- Warm the olive oil in your biggest, heaviest pot. Brown the sausage, pork ribs, and braciole in batches — really brown them, don't rush it — then set the meat aside.
- In the same pot, cook the onion until soft, then add the garlic and cook just until fragrant.
- Stir in the tomato paste and cook a minute to deepen its color, then deglaze with the red wine, scraping up all the browned bits from the bottom.
- Crush the tomatoes in by hand, add the bay leaves, and return all the meat to the pot. Bring to a bare simmer.
- Cook uncovered, or barely cracked, for 3 to 4 hours on the lowest possible heat, stirring occasionally so nothing catches. The meat should be falling-apart tender and the sauce reduced to something thick enough to coat a spoon.
- Pull the braciole out, untie it, and slice. Tear in the basil at the end. Serve the sauce over pasta with the meats plated alongside or folded through.
Substitutions
- Braciole: if you can't get thin-cut steak from your butcher, flank steak pounded thin works, or leave it out entirely — the gravy still holds together fine on sausage and ribs alone.