Bolognese Sauce

A meat sauce cooked three hours with milk and very little tomato.

Pork, Beef. Not vegetarian — contains beef, beef stock, pork.

Ingredients

• 300 g beef chuck, minced coarsely
• 200 g pork shoulder, minced coarsely
• 80 g pancetta, chopped finely
• 1 onion, 1 carrot and 1 stick celery, all very finely diced
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 200 ml dry white wine
• 300 ml whole milk
• 3 tablespoons tomato purée
• 400 ml beef stock
• 1 teaspoon salt
• nutmeg

Method

1. Cook the pancetta in the oil over a low heat until its fat runs, then add the onion, carrot and celery and cook 15 minutes until completely soft.
2. Add the beef and pork and cook over a medium heat, breaking it up, until the liquid it throws off has boiled away and the meat begins to sizzle in fat. That takes 20 minutes and is worth all of them.
3. Pour in the wine and let it reduce to nothing.
4. NOW THE MILK, BEFORE THE TOMATO. Add it and simmer gently until it has almost disappeared, 30 minutes or so. Milk added after acid will curdle; added first it tenderises the meat and gives the sauce its particular softness.
5. Stir in the tomato purée — THREE SPOONS, not a tin. This is a meat sauce with tomato in it, not a tomato sauce with meat.
6. Add the stock and salt, grate nutmeg over, and simmer uncovered on the lowest heat for 2 and a half hours, stirring occasionally. Top up with water if it catches.
7. It is done when the fat has separated and sits orange on the surface. Stir it back in before serving with tagliatelle, not spaghetti.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Italy · All recipes