One of my favorite things to cook is bolognese sauce. I was turned on to it by my friend Marcia, who passed me a copy of Marcella Hazan’s recipe.
The recipe is very simple. And like so many things in life, the more time you put into it, the better it turns out.
The first step is to to finely chop one stalk of celery, one carrot, and one half onion (I used a whole small one in this latest batch). Then cook the veggies in three tablespoons of melted butter and one tablespoon of olive oil until they’re soft.
Once that’s done, add a pound of ground beef with a healthy pinch of kosher salt and cook the meat until the pink is gone. This latest batch featured a pound of my spiced pork sausage at this stage in place of the ground beef. I was a little worried that the spice in the sausage would throw off the other flavors in the sauce, but it actually turned out quite well.
Once the meat is cooked down, it’s time to throw in a cup of whole milk. Marcia notes here that she often uses skim, as it’s generally what she has on hand. With the baby in the house, we always have whole milk around, so I used that. Bring the sauce to a good simmer and cook until the milk is gone.
As soon as the milk is cooked off, add a grating of fresh nutmeg (a pinch of dry) and one cup of dry white wine. I used extra dry vermouth this time. Just like the previous step, simmer the sauce now until the alcohol is burned off.
If you’re like me, you may wonder to yourself, “but just how long does it take for the alcohol to burn off? Turns out we’re not the first people to ask ourselves that question, and the answer isn’t as apparent as you might think. I just simmered the sauce until the liquid was cooked off almost completely, about 20 to 25 minutes.
Now for the patient part. Open up a 28 oz. can of diced or crushed tomatoes (or even whole, peeled plum tomatoes and crush them up with your hands) and empty it into the pan. Turn the heat down about as low as it’ll go and let the sauce simmer very gently for as long as possible. You could eat it at this stage, but the longer you simmer it, the fuller the flavor becomes. I was able to get a full three hours of simmering in, which makes the sauce incredibly rich.
When you’re ready to eat serve up the sauce over some al dente whole wheat pasta and grate some reggiano on top.
The rest of our meal was made up of a spinach salad with chopped ripe olives, a simple oil and raspberry vinegar dressing, and croutons I made with some old light rye bread baked to a crisp with some olive oil, sea salt, pepper, and celery salt. They turned out really well (I love croutons), and I’ve got some left over to serve with the homemade chicken noodle soup I’m going to cook tomorrow. That recipe is even easier than the bolognese, so I doubt I’ll get any pictures of that prep.