The Bolognese

First I'd like to give a shout out to the folks who have visited my blog from around the globe - that's you in Russia! I'm talking to you, my friend in Taiwan. France - you're beautiful, hope to see you soon. Tanzania - respect. And Singita South Africa - hope you're keeping it real in the Sabi Sands.

So the weather has turned in Los Angeles (last week anyway), and it feel like fall may be finally upon us…what could possibly be better on a rainy Sunday, than to fill the house with the incredible aroma that comes from cooking a beautiful Bolognese sauce? It makes a house a home.

I mean, who doesn’t love a good Bolognese? Vegetarians and vegans may not eat it, but I’m sure most would have to admit that it’s pretty damn good! Lately I’ve been working on my “Last Meal” -- don’t worry mom, I’m not off to the gas chamber or anything, but I have been thinking, somewhat morbidly I suppose, if I were to have one last meal on this earth, what would it be? Well, I can tell you that Bolognese would be on the menu – probably as a Primi, but it would def be on there.

So a little history on the sauce. As most of you probably know, the word Bolognese, roughly translates to “meat sauce as it is made in Bologna”, Italy, the official recipe of which, was registered with the Bologna Chamber of Commerce on October 17, 1982 by The Accademia Italiana della Cucina (Italian Academy of Cuisine),.

However, Bolognese is considered to be the most widely abused recipe in all of Italian cooking and what many people consider to be Bolognese, is not. For instance, did you know that Spaghetti is not the traditional pasta used for Bolognese? It’s actually Tagliatelle. Interesting, no?
So many Italian chefs were up in arms about the abuse of Bolognese that they banded together to create “Bolognese Day”, in January of this year. The Telegraph reported that “In an attempt to restore the integrity of the dish known to millions of British diners as ‘spag bol’, nearly 450 chefs in Italian restaurants in 50 countries cooked Spaghetti Bolognese on Sunday with authentic ingredients including pancetta, carrots, celery, onions, tomato paste and a dash of wine.”
So obviously, this dish is a national treasure and taken very seriously. However… while the official recipe is fantastic, is it really the only way to make Bolognese? I think not. Bolognese has been around much longer than 1982 and was likely started as a rustic dish that poor Italian famers made, scraping together various ingredients to make a sauce to serve with pasta.

Saveur magazine interviewed Alessandra Spisni, owner of the cooking school La Vecchia Scuola Bolognese, who put it this way:
"Ragù was traditionally made at home, so every version—if it has been passed down for generations within a family—is as authentic as the next. Who is to say whether my neighbor's ragù is more Bolognese than mine or less? ...I learned it like I learned to talk, little by little. It's very traditional: I don't use olive oil because we've never produced olive oil in this region. Instead, I always use rendered pork fat. I add thick tomato purée, not the concentrate in tubes from the supermarket. And it isn't traditional to use broth, so when I do add liquid to the ragù, it's water. A family with little money and many mouths to feed wouldn't spend hours simmering a rich meat broth only to put it into a sauce. That means that the meat has to come from the most flavorful cuts. We don't raise cattle for steak here in Emilia like they do in Tuscany; our beef comes from older cows, so it's very tasty, but it must simmer and tenderize for hours. I use red wine, not white, because those are the types of grapes that grow in the hills outside the city. The tannins in the red wine help to break down the meat. I never use spices or milk. Those ingredients are added to correct something—nutmeg to sweeten overly acidic tomatoes, milk if the meat is too gamy—but they aren't part of the recipe."
So, even though there may be an “official” recipe, Bolognese sauces are actually a highly personal, familial dish – a Coat of Arms of sorts, the recipes of which Italian families pride themselves on – and guard like a national secret!

Now I’ve messed around with Bolognese for years…I’ve tried different combinations of meats, with carrots and celery and without, white wine vs. red wine, different blends of aromatic herbs…I’ve done a bunch of experiminenting, and have finally landed on what I feel is “My” secret recipe, which “Mama” is more than happy to share with my loyal constituency.

Time – 3 Hours. A Labor of Love!!

What you’ll need:

1lb ground beef
1lb ground veal
1lb gound veal
6-7 THICK slices of Pancetta. I’m talking 1/8” thick.
6-10 Cloves of Garlic
2 big yellow onions
2 cans whole, peeled plum tomatoes
2 cans tomato paste
Handful of rosemary
Small handful of thyme
¾ btl cheap, but good red wine – cab, valpocello or barberra is good.
Large stock pot.
Food processor

Now, there’s not a whole lot that goes into a Bolognese, but the execution is very important, which is why I like to get everything prepped and ready to go first. First, preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Oven? For Bolognese? Yeah, I know, you’ll see.

Then peel all your garlic and press with a garlic press – right into the stock pot (not on stove yet), then, pick the rosemary and thyme leaves from the stem and chop up fine – throw that into the stock pot. Next, cut up your pancetta into small squares – throw that in the stock pot. Now take your stock pot and put it on the stove – medium heat, add a glug of olive oil. But don’t burn your garlic! You want the heat to be hot enough to brown the pancetta and render the fat from it, but not burn the garlic, so gently sautee it.

Next, peel and dice the onions. When the pancetta gets golden, add the onions and sautee for another 5 mins. While that’s happening, drain the whole tomatoes of liquid, then reach in with your hand and push down on the tomatoes to squeeze any excess water out, and drain that too. Put the whole peeled tomatoes into the food processor and whizz them up into a nice thick ragu.

After 5 mins, when the onions are nice and soft, add all your meats, some more olive oil, and a good bit of salt and pepper, and brown it for 5 min or so. When the meat gets nice and brown, turn the heat up to high, and slowly add ½ of the bottle of wine. Stir, mix in well. When the wine just starts to boil, add the tomato ragu. Stir in well, add some more salt and pepper to taste, and another ¼ of the red wine. Bring to a boil, stir, then add one can of tomato paste. Stir the sauce to make sure the paste really mixes in – this should thicken the sauce and turn it a beautiful color red. Now, the second can, is optional. It’s really a taste thing, and a sauce thickness thing. The second can will make the sauce more zesty and a little less powerful in terms of garlic and wine flavors. It’ll also take longer to cook down without it. You may want to try just a ½ second can. Up to you really. So I added the second can and mixed it in, and again, salt and pepper to taste.

Tasting your Bolognese, is really important. I probably tasted my sauce 30 times, easily. You need to keep tasting it – does it need more wine? More salt? More pepper? You really need to keep tweaking as you go, so the flavors cook into the meat. Once you’re happy with the taste, cover, turn the stove off and put it in the oven for 90minutes.

Why the oven? A little trick I learned from my man J.O., who thinks that if you do a sauce in the oven instead of on the stove it cooks it evenly, from all sides, and you don’t have to work about the bottom burning. Pretty smart, especially with a Bolognese that eventually does require a lot of stirring anyway – this minimizes it as much as possible.

After 90 minutes, remove from the oven, put back on the stove, uncover the pot, give it a few good stirs, taste (don’t burn your mouth). Now at this point, the sauce was missing something for me…I wanted a little bit of a bite, a tang to my Bol, so I added a good couple of dashes of red wine vinegar – probably 2-3 tablespoons. It really made the sauce. So add it. Now bring the sauce to a boil – low heat’ll probably do it… If you have a splatter screen to cover your pot, it’ll be useful. And now the real work begins…

You need to reduce this nice looking tomato sauce by about 50%, without burning the bottom. This sauce needs to become a Bolognese and the only way to do that is with a little love, patience and elbow grease. Here’s what you do Set a timer for 3 minutes – let the sauce boil for three minutes, then actively stir for one minute with a wooden spoon, being sure to really scrape the bottom of the pot to make sure nothing is sticking and burning. Repeat the process for about 30-45 minutes, or until the sauce has reduced down to a dense meat sauce – as pictured. If you put some in a bowl by itself, a spoon should almost be able to stand up in it.

When your sauce looks good, turn the heat off and let it rest. Boil some water, add salt and olive oil, and drop in some fresh Tagliatelle or Pappardelle for three mins. Drain the pasta, and serve it up with a hulking ladle of Bolognese and smother with parmesan.

It just doesn’t get better than that!