February - Bolognese Sauce

Challenge 2 - February -Bolognese Sauce

February is a time for hearts, love and in our house - birthdays!!  Lots of celebrations, desserts and meals that say 'I love you!'   Nothing says that more than a delicious meal that's been cooking on the stove for hours and warms you to the soul.  You can actually feel yourself melting into the chair with every bite. A wonderful time of year!

A personal favorite that falls into this category is Bolognese sauce.  We've made a few versions of this over the years, using Mario, Tyler and Giada versions of the recipe, but for some reason have shied away from Marcella.  For anyone who's into Italian Cooking/Cook books, Marcella Hazan is the authority on the subject. Her books are legendary and her recipe style is commanding.  She tells you exactly what to do and more importantly(and directly) what not to do.  But she also explains why, which is so helpful for developing culinary minds.  Part of the hesitation of trying her version is that every time I make one of her recipes it seems to take for-ev-er, and with little kids running around these days, I've lost the ability to tackle cooking projects like that.  Last year I innocently attempted her mushroom lasagne. In the end I had to call in reinforcements (Rob),  it ended up taking us till 2 in the morning and encountered about 3 nervous breakdowns in the process. But let me tell you, when we ate it the next night for dinner, it was just about one of the most ridiculously, delicious things we've ever eaten.   The thing about Marcella's recipes is they take time, love and not skipping steps, but the results are always soooo worth it!!

Marcella's Mushroom Lasagne

So the time has come to tackle her Bolognese recipe.  The recipe itself actually doesn't involve that many steps... some chopping, sauteing etc, but the trick here is the time and attention (also known as love) that it will take to let this sauce evolve into the meal that's going to make you (and those lucky enough to be at the table) melt!!

Below you can find Marcella's recipe along with all her notes to make you successful.   I love the parts where she says specifically how not to serve it -priceless.   This is the time to break out your pasta machines or rolling pins, too.  But only to get the sheets of pasta dough (see note on Tagliatelle below).  If you want to go over the top - try to make some tortellini or lasagne with the sauce - can't promise no breakdowns in the process, but I bet the results would be beyond worth it!!

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Excerpt from Essentials of Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan

Bolognese is characterized by mellow, gentle, comfortable flavor that any cook can achieve by being careful able a few basic points:

• The meat should not be from too lean a cut; the more marbled it is, the sweeter the ragu will be. The most desirable cut of beef is the neck portion of the chuck.
• Add salt immediately when sauteing the meat to extract its juices of the subsequent benefit of the sauce.
• Cook the meat in milk before adding wine and tomatoes to protect it from the acidic bite of the latter.
• Do not use a demiglace or other concentrates that tip the balance of flavors towards harshness.
• Use a pot that retains heat. Earthenware is preferred in Bologna and by most cooks in Emilia-Romagna, but enameled cast-iron pans or a pot whose heavy bottom is composed of layers of steel alloys are fully satisfactory.
• Cook, uncovered, at the merest simmer for a long, long time; no less than 3 hours is necessary, but more is better.

Bolognese Meat Sauce
2 heaping cups, for about 6 servings and 1 1/2 pounds pasta

Ingredients:
1 T vegetable oil
3 T butter plus 1 T for tossing the pasta
1/2 cup chopped onion
2/3 cup chopped celery
2/3 cup chopped carrot
3/4 pound ground beef chuck (see prefatory note above)
Salt
Black pepper, ground fresh from the mill
1 cup whole milk
Whole nutmeg
1 cup dry white wine
1 1/2 cups canned imported Italian plum tomatoes, cut up, with their juice
1 1/4 to 1 1/2 pounds pasta
Freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese at the table

Recommended pasta: There is no more perfect union in all gastronomy than the marriage of Bolognese ragu with homemade Bolognese tagliatelle (see below).  Equally classic is Baked Green Lasagne with Meat Sauce, Bolognese Style. Ragu is delicious with tortellini and irreproachable with such boxed, dry pasta as rigatoni, conchiglie or fusilli. Curiously, considering the popularity of the dish in the United Kingdom and countries of the Commonwealth, meat sauce in Bologna is never served over spaghetti.

1. Put the oil, butter, and chopped onion in the pot, and turn the beat on to medium. Cook an stir the onion until it has become translucent, then add the chopped celery and carrot. Cook for about 2 minutes, stirring the vegetables to coat them.
2. Add the ground beef, a large pinch of salt, and a few grindings of pepper. Crumble the meat with a  fork, stir well, and cook until the beef has lost its raw, red color.
3. Add the milk and let it simmer gently, stirring frequently, until it has bubbled away completely.   Add a tiny grating, about 1/8 teaspoon, of nutmeg, and stir.
4. Add the wine, let it simmer until it has evaporated, then add the tomatoes and stir thoroughly to coat all ingredients well. When the tomatoes begin to bubble, turn the heat down so that the sauce cooks at the laziest of simmers, with just an intermittent bubble braking through to the surface.  Cook, uncovered, for 3 hours or more, stirring from time to time.   While the sauce is cooking, you are likely to find that it begins to dry out and the fat separates from the meat.  To keep it from sticking, continue the cooking, adding 1/2 cup of water whenever necessary.   At the end, however, no water at all must be left and the fat must come separate from the sauce. Taste and correct for salt.
5. Toss with cooked drained pasta, adding the tablespoon of butter, and serve with freshly grated Parmesan on the side.

Ahead-of-time note. If you cannot watch the sauce for a 3- to 4-hour stretch, you can turn off the heat whenever you need to leave, and resume the cooking later on, as long as you complete the sauce within the same day.  Once done, you can refrigerate the sauce in a tightly sealed container for 3 days, or you can freeze it.  Before tossing with pasta, reheat it, letting it simmer for 15 minutes and stirring it once or twice.

Variations of Ragu with Pork
Pork is an important part of Bologna's culture, its economy, and the cuisine, and many cooks add some pork to make their ragu tastier.  Use 1 part ground pork, preferably from the neck or Boston butt, to 2 parts beef, and make the meat sauce exactly as described in the basic recipe above.

Tagliatelle - When you use the broader cutters for the pasta machine, what you get is fettucine. Tagliatelle, the classic partner with Bolognese meat sauce, is a little broader and must be cut by hand.  When the thinned strips of pasta are dry enough to cut, but still soft enough not to bend without cracking, fold them up loosely along their length, making a flat roll about 3 inches wide at its sides. With a cleaver or similar knife, cut the roll into ribbons about 1/4 inch wide. Cut parallel to the original length of pasta strip so that when you unroll the tagliatelle, the noodle will be the full length of the strip.   

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Additional personal note on Bolognese.   This sauce also comes complete with travel memories of time spent studying abroad! After studying in Florence for a semester, I was fortunate enough (thanks to Mom and Dad!!) to travel around Europe and much of Italy along with sister Suzie and some friends of ours.   On this trip we made a brief stop in Bologna just to eat Tortellini alla Bolognese. It's probably not hard to imagine someone from the Yates family taking the time to get off a train, hike a few miles through a city with your giant backpack just to try the famous tortellini alla Bolognese, but we did.  Once we finally made it to the restaurant recommended in our travel book as the must stop place to try this delicacy, dropped our packs in the front corner of the shop and settled into our chair, we debated as the waiter asked us if we'd like some red wine with our lunch.  We thought about saying no, since it was a long hike back to the train station, but he reminded us 'how can you say no, when in a country where the wine is cheaper than the water?'  Since we were on a budget, how could we say no to that? :)  A beautiful bowl of pasta and some red wine later, we meandered back through this beautiful city and back to the train on our way to Florence.  A brief but delicious stop in Bologna.  I have it on my bucket list to go back and take a tortellini making class, maybe we'll save that challenge for next year :)



Suzie and Talia eating tortelloni and tagliatelle alla Bolognese in the spring of 1997.

Liz's Bolognese - YUM!

Deb's Tortellini Bolognese

Suzie's Linguini Bolognese