Epic Bolognese

Epic Bolognese

00:00 Intro
01:57 Chop the Aromatics
02:30 Why Grind the Meat Yourself?
03:33 How Not to Ruin Your Meat Grinder
04:18 Freeze the Grinder and the Meat
04:50 Meat Cuts
06:16 Grind the Meat
06:35 Clean the Meat Grinder
07:10 Brown the Pot
09:09 Cook the Aromatics
10:14 Do We Need Milk?
10:40 Tomato Products
11:38 Do We Need Demi-glace?
13:21 Add the Spices
13:42 Add the Wine and Umami Boosters
14:36 The Tricky Business of Salt
15:35 Cook in the Oven
16:40 Pronunciation Conundrum

Relevant Links:
Leeward in Portland, ME https://leewardmaine.com/
Samin Nosrat’s Good Things https://amzn.to/4p7tJG4
Kenji Lopez-Alt’s Bolognese https://www.seriouseats.com/the-best-slow-cooked-bolognese-sauce-recipe
W2 Kitchen Bolognese @w2kitchen

Brown Chicken Stock and Demi-Glace:
Rotisserie Chicken Version: https://youtu.be/TF6Rrd9NmhI
From Scratch Version: https://youtu.be/4OjBy0Z6U38
From Leftover Carcases Version: https://youtu.be/02-0sQ2j_DI
Instant Pot Version: https://youtu.be/euNqxnG3yrY

Bolognese Recipe
==============
200g finely diced carrot (about 1 large)
100g finely diced celery (about 2 ribs)
250g finely diced yellow onions (about 2 medium)
35g minced garlic (about 6 cloves)
4.5 Lb (2 kg) mix of boneless pork shoulder (Boston Butt) and boneless short ribs (or chuck)
Vegetable oil as needed
3 Tbsp unsalted butter
6 oz (170g) tomato paste (small can)
28 oz (794g) canned tomatoes and their juice, pureed or chopped (large can)
3/4 cup demi-glace or 3 cups of stock (see the recipe links above)
4 cups dry white wine if using demi-glace (reduce to 2 cups if using unreduced stock)
2 Tbsp soy sauce (optional)
2 Tbsp fish sauce (optional)
1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1 cinnamon stick
2 star anise
2 bay leaves
Salt and black pepper to taste

Assemble the grinder with the largest hole disk and freeze for at least 1 hour. Freeze the meat for 60-90 min, but not longer. Cut the meat into strips that fit the grinder feeding tube. Grind the meat.

Set a large, heavy bottomed pot or a deep skillet (or two) over high heat. Add the vegetable oil to cover the bottom. When the oil is hot, swirl the pot and add just enough meat to cover the bottom without crowding. Cook until you get a hint of color. Stir, cook for a few more seconds and remove the meat to a large bowl. Wait for all the juices to evaporate and for the bottom of the pot to turn golden brown (not burnt!). Add more meat and continue to cook in batches.

When the last batch of meat is out, turn down the heat to medium-low and wait for the bottom of the pot to brown. Add the carrots, celery, and onions. Salt, stir, cover and cook for 5 minutes. Uncover and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are tender and golden, 15-20 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 300F (150C).

To the pot with veggies, add the garlic and salt, and cook, stirring for a couple of minutes or just until aromatic. Combine all the vegetables and the meat in one of the pots and break up the clumps with a potato masher.

Stir in the tomato paste, canned tomatoes, demi-glace or stock, the wine, soy sauce, fish sauce, nutmeg, cinnamon stick, star anise, bay leaves, and black pepper. Bring to a simmer. Taste and correct for salt. The sauce should be slightly undersalted at this point.

Place in the middle of the oven, uncovered for 3 hours, stirring once anytime after the first 1.5 hours.

Taste and correct for salt. The sauce should be a tad too salty to eat by itself.

To serve: Warm up the sauce and adjust seasoning and thickness with pasta water. Add a heavy grating of parmesan and a good chunk of butter and toss with pasta (I like rigatoni).

To store: cool completely and refrigerate in an airtight container for up to a week or freeze for up to 6 months.

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Is the thumbnail a nod to Adam Ragusea? It 
certainly is. Whenever I say something cute about another YouTube channel, some viewers 
immediately go to dark places. I am not being snarky. I seriously love Adam’s content, and 
yes, one of the secrets to my bolognese is that I brown the pot, not the meat. But 
let’s start this story in the beginning. Last year, I had a life changing 
bolognese in a restaurant in Portland, Maine, called Leeward. I really didn’t 
think it was possible to surprise me with bolognese. I didn’t even order it. I wanted 
something more interesting, but my husband ordered it and it was indeed to die for. Did 
I ask them for a recipe? No. First of all, getting recipes from restaurant chefs is unlikely. 
Even if you get one, they’ll leave out most of the juicy details. Second of all — this is cooking, 
not baking. With enough persistence it’s totally possible to recreate this at home. And after 
about 10 tries, in my mind, I have succeeded. Whether my recipe is anything like Leeward’s, 
I have no idea. Texture wise — possibly. I now grind my own meat for bolognese and I believe 
they do too. But flavorwise — we might be taking different paths to achieve the same goal. The goal 
here is layers and layers of maillard reaction and umami. I have incorporated ideas from Samin 
Nosrat, Kenji Lopez-Alt, and my new favorite YouTube channel W2 Kitchen. The links for 
all of them are below and now, let’s cook! We’ll need some very finely diced carrots, 
celery, and onions. The amount of vegetables is flexible. Feel free to eyeball. If finely 
dicing all these vegetables is difficult, you can coarsely chop them and then pulse them in 
a food processor. They don’t need to be square. They just need to be small, but not pureed. 
We’ll also need about 6 garlic cloves, finely minced or put through a garlic press. Now that our 
veggies are prepped, let’s talk about the meat. My first breakthrough on my quest for the 
perfect bolognese was a complete accident. I used coarsely ground pork from a little 
grocery store in my area (Hi Tilly & Salvy’s), and voila. The texture got a lot better. Since 
no one near me sells coarsely ground beef, I decide to take matters into my own hands and 
to grind my own beef and pork. That’s when the texture became truly spectacular. You’d think 
that these bigger pieces would make the sauce more grainy, but it’s just the opposite. They 
cook to perfect softness and don’t cross link nearly as much as finely ground supermarket meat. 
If you don’t want to grind the meat yourself, I don’t blame you. I used to avoid it like the 
plague. And that’s because I was using the meat grinder all wrong. So let me save you some 
trouble and help you learn from my mistakes. The first KitchenAid grinding attachment that 
I got 20 years ago left a strange black residue on my meat. I searched the internet far and 
wide, but couldn’t figure out what it was. It took me years to get over my fear of grinding 
meat and to try another KitchenAid attachment. This time I read the instructions and guess 
what — you can’t put the blade and the disks into a dishwasher. Here is what I am guessing 
happened with my first grinder. I dishwashed the grinding disks, they rusted, and that 
rust got on my meat. With the new grinder, I wash everything by hand, and 
so far I’ve had no problems. For easier grinding it helps to keep both 
the grinder and the meat extremely cold. I put the grinder and all its parts into 
the freezer the night before. Make sure to assemble the grinder before freezing so that 
you don’t freeze your hands off trying to put it together. The meat should be stiff, but not 
completely frozen. I put it in my freezer for an hour before grinding. I find that it takes 
less room in the freezer if I freeze the meat right in its packaging. After an hour, it 
becomes stiff, but still very easy to cut. My favorite cuts for bolognese are boneless pork 
shoulder (also known as Boston Butt) and boneless short ribs. This cut is very confusing 
and it deserves a bit of a discussion. You’d think these were bone-in short ribs 
with the bone removed, but they are not! Boneless short ribs come from the same 
muscle as bone-in short ribs (Serratus ventralis) but from a different part of 
a cow. This broad muscle extends from the plate to the chuck where it becomes 
thinner and slightly less marbled. The bone-in short ribs are cut from the plate and 
the boneless short ribs are cut from the chuck. This cut is almost as good as bone-in short ribs 
and almost as cheap as chuck. If you can’t find it, chuck blade roast or any well marbled 
cut from the chuck area is a good option. You can use any mix of beef and pork. 
Today, I have slightly more pork than beef. The total amount of meat is 
four and a half pounds, which is a lot. I figured if I am dirtying a meat 
grinder and running the oven for 3 hours, I should make a huge batch. Bolognese lasts 
perfectly in the fridge for at least a week and can be frozen for months. But if you don’t 
have a big pot, cut this recipe in half. Cut all the meat into chunks that can easily fit 
the feeding tube of your grinder, and feed them through the disk with the biggest holes. You 
might want to push up on the meat tray at the same time as you are pushing the meat down through 
the feed tube so that your mixer doesn’t tip over. Once all the meat is through, put a crumpled 
paper towel through the feed tube to push the remainder of the meat out and stop as soon 
as you hear weird noises. Disassemble the grinder — there is our paper towel — rinse 
out the meat, and put all the parts into a big bowl of soapy water. The only part I don’t 
soak is the knife so that I don’t accidentally cut myself. Then rinse everything out and check 
the instructions in your meat grinder manual about which parts need to be dried by hand. Learn 
from my mistakes and don’t allow things to rust. There is a huge controversy over whether or not 
you should brown the meat for bolognese. From a flavor perspective it’s good. Maillard reaction 
equals yum! But from a texture perspective, it’s bad. It toughens the meat. My previous 
strategy was to get the meat to the cooked gray stage, but not to brown it on the 
stove top. Once the sauce was assembled, I put it in the oven uncovered for 3 hours. 
This produced browning on top of the sauce and gave it more depth of flavor. We are 
still going to use the oven method today. It’s by far the best way to cook any stew or 
braise, but we are going to take the Maillard reaction to a whole new level by browning the 
pot. I know it sounds weird, but you’ll see. Set your dutch oven over high heat. Mine is 7 and 
1/2 quarts. When it’s hot, add enough vegetable oil to cover the bottom. Swirl it around. Add 
just enough meat to cover the bottom of the pot. Don’t crowd it to avoid steaming. Leave it 
alone just until you start to see a hint of color. Only a hint, no more. Get the meat out 
with a slotted spoon and wait for the bottom of the pot to become golden brown before adding the 
next batch. With each batch the bottom of the pot will get a little darker. Some of the batches 
might release a bit of juice. If that happens, wait for this juice to evaporate and the bottom 
of the pot to become golden brown before adding more meat. The first batch of meat might 
be completely pale when you get it out, but the next batch will pick up the brown 
bits left over by the previous batch. Although you could do all the browning in one pot, 
I prefer to use a second one to speed things up. My 12 inch skillet with straight sides is perfect 
because it gives me a huge area for browning. Once the last batch of meat is out, turn down the 
heat to moderately low and wait until the bottom of the pot is beautifully brown. Add the carrots, 
celery, and onion. You can do this in either pot. I am doing it in my stainless steel pot since 
on the stovetop it cooks more evenly than the dutch oven. Stir in the salt, add 3 tablespoons 
of butter, cover, and let it steam for 5 minutes. Uncover, and continue to cook gently, stirring 
occasionally until the vegetables are completely tender and just starting to brown. Be patient. 
This will take about 15 to 20 minutes. Add the garlic and a pinch of salt and cook stirring for a 
couple of minutes or just until it gets aromatic. For the final assembly, I will move everything 
to the Dutch oven since it’s deeper. Let’s add the meat, black pepper, and the cooked 
veggies. Take the potato masher and break up any meat clumps that formed during 
cooking. Since I ground the meat myself, it hasn’t cross linked much and this step is 
pretty quick. If you used store bought ground meat, you’ll need to do a bit more work with the 
masher. Here is what the texture should look like. Traditionally, milk is added at this point 
and simmered gently until it evaporates. The most common explanation that I’ve 
heard for milk is that it protects the meat from the acidity of tomatoes and 
wine. I’ve tried making bolognese with and without the milk and couldn’t tell the 
difference, so I am skipping the milk. The only tomato product that I used to add 
to my Bolognese were the canned tomatoes, but I recently got Samin Nosrat’s new book, 
Good Things, and I noticed that she uses both canned tomatoes and tomato paste in her 
lazy sugo recipe. I tried it and loved it. Tomato paste gives the sauce more intensity. I am 
lucky today because one of my students, Angela, brought me unbelievably good homemade canned 
tomatoes. These are already pureed, but if you are buying tomatoes, the good quality certified San 
Marzano are sold whole. You can break them up with a flat wooden spoon right in the pot or remove 
a couple of tomatoes and buzz the rest right in the can with an immersion blender. This is a 
good time to preheat your oven to 300 degrees. Here is advice from Marcella Hazan’s book. 
“Do not use a demi-glace or other concentrates that tip the balance of flavors toward 
harshness.” It took me 20 years to break this rule. Thank you W2 Kitchen for inspiring 
this rebellion. Now that I’ve tried demi-glace, there is no going back. I don’t know what Marcella 
meant by “harshness.” Demi-glace gives the sauce more meatiness and more gelatin. To me, those 
are very desirable qualities in a meat sauce. My demi-glace is made with roasted chicken. 
It’s just my very reduced chicken stock. I’ve made it on my channel many different ways. 
It just took me a few years to realize that calling it demi-glace can clear up the 
confusion over how reduced it is. This is reduced 4 times. In other words, 4 
cups of stock were boiled down to 1. What if you don’t want to make this? If you can 
find a D’Artagnian frozen demi-glace that will work. You can also bloom a packet of powdered 
gelatin in 1 cup of water and use that instead of demi-glace. But I don’t recommend using store 
bought demi-glace sold in the shelf stable aisle of your supermarket. The goal here is gelatin and 
these fake demi-glace products have very little if any gelatin. You can also use good quality 
gelatinous stock that’s not reduced. It can be made out of anything really — beef, pork, 
or chicken. Just use a bigger volume. Instead of 3/4 cup of demi-glace, use about 3 cups of 
unreduced stock and reduce the amount of wine. Nutmeg is very traditional in bolognese. It’s 
hard to measure if you are grating your own, but I’d guess it’s about 1/4 of a teaspoon. 
Later on I’ll also add a cinnamon stick, a couple star anise, and a couple of 
bay leaves. All of these are optional, but they give the sauce a much more complex aroma. I am using Charles Shaw’s sauvignon blanc from 
Trader Joe’s. Any cheap sauvignon blanc or any cheap unoaked dry white wine will work. 
The total amount I ended up adding was 4 cups. Since a bottle only has 3 cups, you are 
welcome to replace the 4th cup with water. The next two ingredients are optional and 
completely untraditional. I am adding 2 tablespoons of soy sauce and 2 tablespoons 
of fish sauce. I got this idea from Kenji. When you taste the final product, you’d never 
guess that it contains soy sauce and fish sauce. Adding a few parmesan rinds would be a 
more traditional way to up the umami, but I don’t always have rinds on hand and I do 
find soy sauce and fish sauce to be more potent. Taste your sauce for salt. It should be slightly 
undersalted at this point because it will reduce a lot in the oven. How much salt you’ll need 
to add will depend on the salt level of your tomato products and whether or not you are 
using soy sauce and fish sauce. Luckily, bolognese is very easy to adjust during serving. 
If your final sauce comes out too bland, add more salt before serving. You can salt your 
pasta water very aggressively and add a splash to your bolognese when you are tossing it with 
pasta. If your bolognese comes out too salty, don’t salt your pasta water as much as you 
normally would, and use it to dilute your sauce. Remember that this is not a soup. The 
sauce will be coating your pasta in a thin layer, so by the end, it should be 
a tad too salty to eat on its own. Put the uncovered pot into a 300 degree oven 
for 3 hours. If you can, stir it once during this time. Here it is after slightly more 
than 2 hours. You see all the browning on top of the meat and on the sides of the pot. 
Let’s stir it in to spread this flavor evenly through the meat. I push the sauce up the sides 
of the pot to help it pick up the brown bits. Put it back in the oven and at the 3 hour mark 
your meat should be pillowy soft. Remove the bay leaves and spices and pat yourself on 
the back for accomplishing this epic sauce. Since we broke all the rules of bolognese 
already, I don’t see why we should stop now. I know this sauce is traditionally served 
with pappardelle or some other ribbon pasta, but I believe that rigatoni work better because 
they trap the sauce inside their tubes. That’s how Leeward in Portland serves their bolognese 
and I can’t imagine a better combination. By the way, I’ve agonized greatly about whether 
I should use the Italian pronunciation Bolognese or the English Bolognese and whether the 
restaurant in Portland is pronounced like the original nautical term loo-erd or Leeward. 
Based on the comments I get, it seems to me that people have stronger feelings about how 
things are pronounced than how they are cooked, so I just wanted to clarify that I am fully 
aware of multiple pronunciations of these terms. Here are more very detailed culinary 
tutorials for you to check out and if you are ever in the Boston area, maybe 
I’ll see you in one of my classes.