I have made a ragu in Bolognese style for years, but formerly I was just doing it “by feel” and never followed a recipe. It was always close, but never perfect. I had been to Bologna as a teen and never forgot the immense flavour, which in my home cooking of this dish was slightly lacking. I recently travelled yet again to Bologna, now in my mid-twenties, and I sought out advice from locals. Essentially, they just said, use the traditional recipe. It’s online. And so I did – the original ragù alla Bolognese was submitted to the Bologna Chamber of Commerce and can be found in the attached link.
Here is my first attempt – using a shoddy blunt knife to hand cut tagliatelle – it came out very rustic, but OH MY GOD was it delicious. The flavour was insane!!! Starting with melted pancetta and then cooking on low for about 5 hours made this a bombshell dish. My biggest observations:
the vegetables in the soffrito need to be hand cut (not blitzed in a food processor). They also need to be finely chopped, not great big chunks.
the dish was a little fatty for my taste – I believe this is due to doubling all ingredients in the recipe, leading to the use of 300g of pancetta, plus the use of 20% fat beef mince. I would opt for a leaner beef mince (10% or less) but keep the pancetta next time.
the meatiness of the handmade tagliatelle was a perfect combination with the ragu. Try to hand-make if you can.
Anyone making “bolognese” at home, I implore you, if you have a day off and feel inspired to try something new, please give this a go and let it cook slowly for many hours. It makes a world of difference from your standard 2 hour dish. I didn’t pause to take nice and manicured photos, I just wanted to eat. Maybe next time I’ll stage it better and update 😂
(PS: pasta was made with 454g 00 flour and 258g whole beaten eggs, plus extra flour as needed for moisture control – as per Evan Funke’s American Sfoglino book. He seems to be even more of a stickler for detail than me!)
by Hollowpoint20
13 Comments
That sauce looks mighty thin
Sorry, that does not look right or good at all.
How long did your sauce cook down? It is hard to tell just judging from the pictures, but I feel like more low and slow for a bit longer will go a long way for improved texture and consistency.
Pasta needs to be thinner, sauce needs to reduce much longer. Why does the soffritto need to be hand diced? Most restaurants in bologna use food processor. Most ragu cook for +3 hours
Looks like the water came into too much with the pasta, drip better before adding next time.
Also a touch more tomato to the sauce wouldn’t hurt it.
Otherwise nice effort!
while it does look like it tasted exceptionally good and those tagliatelle make my mouth water, I think there’s too much water and too little oil, usually ragú should be very much greasy. I can dm you a picture for reference if you’d like (I’m from Romagna, not Bologna, so it may to be the same tho). I love when people try to find their own recipe and what clicks for them by trial and error, I’m sure you’ll reach the perfect result in no time
There is no way you simmered this sauce for hours
Seems like a lot of fat in that watery ‘sauce’. When you brown your mince, drain away the fat that comes out of it, else you’ll always get that fat on your plate at the end, as seen in your image.
I’m like a few minutes away from have to go to bed time, but what it looks like to me is that you didn’t sear the mince, you stewed it, and lost moisture from the mince, it’s an uphill battle from there to make a nice sauce.
Best tips:
Bacon for fat, reduced down, deglaze with red wine,
Simmer off the alcohol,
Can of Chopped tomatoes, tomato paste and brown sugar to balance the acidity of tomatoes,
Bay leaves.
Cook for at least 4 hours on low.
Cheat code :
You can add a tea spoon of miso paste (or soy sauce). I know it is not the proper way to do it, but it brings an amazing deep umami flavour!
Based on some of the feedback you have been receiving: if you find it hard to reduce the sauce properly I suggest using a saute pan instead of a pot. It gives you a much bigger cooking surface and since the ragù doesn’t take a lot of liquid at any given time space is not a problem.
That being said, I don’t know how it got THAT watery. How much broth did you add?
Always finish in a sauce pan, add butter and parm. Toss until you get a creamy texture. Pasta is too thick as well.