I’d love to get Italian opinion on my bolognese. I will describe the ingredients and process and would love to hear your thoughts.
- Cook chopped sweet onions, carrots, and celery over low heat with some salt until very soft and fragrant, add one clove chopped garlic towards the end
- Add pound of lean ground beef, and half pound of spicy pork sausage
- Cook all together until meet is browned and cooked through
- Add additional salt to taste
- Red wine. Not too much, not too little. Cook until wine is mostly cooked off and no alcohol flavor
- Add tomatoe paste, mutti brand. Stir, and cook until mixture has a deep red color and thick consistency
- Add whole canned San Marzano tomatoes. Try to break them up with spoon, mix everything up
- Add bay leaf, one piece of basil, and a single fennel seed.
- Cook, for several hours, stirring occasionally, and skimming the fat off the top of the sauce.
This is how I make my bolognese, what do you think? What would you change
by rban123
8 Comments
I use white wine (Orvieto) and a glass of milk (for sweetness) at the same time. No garlic, bay, basil or fennel for me, but half a tbsp of cracked black pepper. Equal parts minced beef brisket and pork belly. I try to slice the soffrito very finely. Three hour + simmer. Similar but different – potato/tomato 😉 Looks good – how did it taste??
You did a great job.
There’s a big misconception about ragù alla bolognese: milk is a key ingredient. Just add it during the cooking in your step 7. Otherwise it’s just called ragù and it’s the most popular one at the end of the day.
Good call about the bay leaf, I prefer just a hint of nutmeg over fennel.
And pro tip: a pinch of sugar is useful to correct the acidity of your sauce.
I don’t know the real recipe of bolognese (I am Italian). It for a standard Ragù seems Italian made, well done!
I’m sure it tastes quite good but it’s not very authentic. I cook some pancetta in the pan before adding the soffrito to it. I also use white wine and beef stock, and don’t add any more tomatoes after using tomato paste. I wouldn’t use the garlic, basil, bay leaf, or fennel seed and towards the end of the simmer (around an hour left when the sauce is decently dry) I would add whole milk. I also like a touch of nutmeg.
That looks like a very tomato-forward ragu.
That sounds fine, somebody mentioned milk – do add that. It tastes better too if allowed to stand overnight
It’s fine.
What I would suggest to get it more “bolognese” is:
– use simple pork mince or pancetta instead of a spicy pork sausage, you can add spicy when you use the sauce to anyone’s desire.
– no garlic, no leafs, no seeds are needed. Just salt and pepper.
– many think ragù is supposed to be red ish, so they add too many tomatoes, it should be brown. Just use tomato paste and water. Some use “conserva” (very very reduced tomato sauce) but it takes some extra work to do that first.
– some suggest milk, it is absolutely optional and it should be added at the end and VERY LITTLE.
Have fun!
Looks great. I would eat it! With pleasure!