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Bolognese Sauce

Summary

Yield
Servings
SourceClassic Food of Northern Italy
Prep time3 hours
RegionItaly

Description

Pasta with Sauce Bolognese

Ragù is a generic word for sauce, except that for a lot of people the only sauce they mean is this super-classic meat sauce from Bologna. It's very rich, but well-balanced, and it's delicious with many wines.

This is usually served in generous amounts on small quantities of broad flat pasta like a tagliatelle. 

This uses a million ingredients and it takes some time to prepare, but you can easily double or triple the recipe and freeze the extra. Don't cut corners on the ingredients; they are all here for a reason, and together they make a great harmony of flavors. After all, if you were staging an opera and had no tenor, you wouldn't substitute a baritone and figure nobody will notice!

Ingredients

4TUnsalted Butter
2TOlive oil
2ozUnsmoked Pancetta (Finely chopped)
1easmall onion (Finely chopped)
1eaCarrot (Finely chopped)
1eaCelery rib (Finely chopped)
1clvGarlic (Finely chopped)
1eaBay Leaf
16ozLean Ground Beef
2TTomato Paste
6ozDry Red Wine
2pnground nutmeg
1tBlack Pepper (freshly ground)
5ozBeef Stock
5ozwhole milk

Instructions

  1. In a heavy saucepan, heat the butter and oil, and add the pancetta. Cook for about 5 minutes, until you have a nicely flavored fat base.
  2. The vegetables should be very finely chopped, like the size of a grain of rice. If that is too labor-intensive, pulse them in a food processor. Then cook them with the bay leaf in the fat for 8-10 minutes.
  3. Turn up the heat and add the ground meat. Cook it until just brown and not hard.
  4. As soon as the meat starts to toughen, add the wine and reduce the heat. Now starts the reducing step.
  5. Add the tomato paste, the pepper, and the stock. Simmer over a low heat for about two hours. As it gets reduced, thin it with the milk a couple of tablespoons at a time and keep going. This extracts all the flavors into the rich sauce.
  6. When the last of the milk has been added and absorbed, adjust the seasoning as needed with salt, more pepper, or another pinch of nutmeg.
  7. Serve hot over broad fresh pasta.

Notes

It is not uncommon to substitute veal for some of the beef. Home minced high-quality beef is more work, but it's worth using that instead of supermarket ground beef! The Mirepoix should be chopped so finely that the vegetables are barely noticeable in the final sauce.
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  • By John at 06/21/2020 - 13:24
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