Bolognese Recipe

Bolognese is probably the most common pasta sauce in the world, nonetheless maybe also the most underestimated one. Cooking a good bolognese is pretty easy but it takes patience and good ingredients to achieve something decent. Also there are countless variations of this classic sauce, very simple ones with 30 minutes cooking time (basically cooking some ground meat in tomato sauce) to very elaborate ones with various hours of preparation and cooking time, even variations without tomatoes!  

This recipe is my personal favorite and quite work intense, about 3.5 hours. I also use it as a base for my lasagna recipe. Attention to detail and fresh ingredients make a huge difference when preparing a tasty bolognese. Let's take a look at the list (This is for 8 portions, generously served):

• 50g of butter
• 200g of raw, smoked bacon
• 2 - 3 onions (depends on size)
• 2 - 3 carrots (depending on size)
• 3 dents of garlic
• 3 celery stalks
• 500g of ground pork meat
• 500g of ground beef
• 200ml of dry red wine
• 700ml of chicken broth (Prepare it yourself! Recipe will follow)
• 80g of concentrated tomato paste
• 1.2kg of very ripe, peeled tomatoes (or quality, steam peeled tomatoes from a can)
• Freshly ground black pepper
• Dried basil
• Fresh parsley (big leaves)

As I said, the preparation is fairly simple but work intense. First you need to cut carrots, onions, garlic, celery and raw bacon into very fine pieces. I normally use a quality food processor that actually cuts the food instead of transforming it into puree. When you are done your vegetables and bacon should look as shown in the next photo.  

Now put the butter into a wide cooking pot and bring to medium heat. When the butter is melted put in the bacon and fry it for about 5 minutes. Make sure it does not get dry and crunchy. Also don't put too much heat or the butter will burn and get brown. Put the vegetables in the pot and fry them with the bacon for another 8 minutes or so. Add the ground beef and pork and fry at medium heat until the meat is cooked and gets grey. This usually takes 10-15 minutes. Make sure to constantly stir the mixture and try to "cut" the ground into smaller pieces while you stir.
The mixture of vegetables, meat and bacon will look as shown in the following picture.

Reduce the heat a little bit and add the red wine. Wait until the red wine is almost fully vaporized and add the scalding chicken broth.
Again wait until the liquid from the chicken broth is reduced, about 10 minutes. Add the tomato paste and black pepper, stir it up and let it cook for another 5 minutes at low heat.
Cut the peeled tomatoes into smaller chunks and add them. Cook for another 10 minutes at low heat. With a wooden spoon squeeze the tomatoes until there are no big chunks left.
Add two spoons of dried basil, add some salt (be careful, the broth and the bacon already add quite a bit of salt) and cover with a heavy pot lid. Reduce the heat to very low so that the bolognese sauce barely boils with the lid closed. Open the lid every 10 minutes and stir the sauce. If there are still any big tomato chunks left squeeze them with the spoon and work them into the sauce.

After the first hour of cooking, cut the parsley into fine pieces and add it to the sauce. Try the sauce and add salt and pepper if needed. Let your bolognese sauce cook for another 30 minutes with the lid closed at very low heat, and you are done!
Bolognese is best with Fusili  pasta and some freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Enjoy!