Bolognese Meat Sauce

This has always been a favorite around here – especially on those days when you just don’t know what to make.  This meal is a clear winner rain, snow or shine… and an absolute winner for rainy Sunday afternoons…

The processes involved have also proven to be a great teaching tool.  One daughter while in grade school had no interest in cooking whatsoever.  However, she could make toast and manage microwave timing to produce a near perfect Hot Pocket.

After watching part of a cooking show one day, she asked me how to reduce liquid and why you would want to – this was during that very brief period of time when “dad knows all and can fix anything.”

Making Bolognese is the prefect teaching drill – btw, she has moved on to learn much more as she manages the affairs, and meals, of her own family now.  And you know, dad has once again become the reference resource of choice – Hmm…

To paraphrase Cooks Illustrated – unlike most Marinara and other tomato based sauces, the purpose of Bolognese is to showcase the flavor of the meat front and center while using complimenting flavors from a complex mix of other ingredients.

Originating from Bologna, Italy in the 11^th Century this meal has become a favorite for a lot of people and easy to prepare – but you must stick to the basic processes explained below for the best outcome each time.

Preparing Bolognese is as much about cooking as it is chemistry and managing that most important secret ingredient of any kitchen many are unfamiliar with – Heat.

There are hundreds of recipe variations for Bolognese and I’ve experimented with many, but this baseline recipe has endured as the most requested around here. And by all means, please experiment with your own variations – if you like garlic and oregano, add garlic and oregano, if you don’t, leave ‘em out and so on.

Your goal = a thick, rich meat sauce prepared with a blend of supporting flavors that work best for you and your family.

This recipe serves four, but if there are only two of you – it could easily be gone in one sitting (skip lunch and have an early dinner, it’s worth it).  This is also one of those recipes that doubles just fine – double everything and increase the reducing time for liquids to 30 minutes as well.

You’ll need:

1 pound of ground sirloin (or cut with 1/3 lb ground pork, ground chuck, veal – any of your choice or all – I prefer a full beef flavor and sirloin and/or chuck does a nice job);

One large celery stalk w/leaves, chopped fine

One large carrot, chopped fine

One medium sweet onion, chopped fine

4-5 garlic cloves, peel removed, sliced thin

3-4 tablespoons of fresh basil leaves, chopped

2 tablespoons of fresh Italian (large leaf) parsley, chopped

5 tablespoons of unsalted ‘real’ butter – churned from ‘real’ cream

1 cup of dry red wine (fortissimo, pinot noir, merlot, cabernet etc – your choice)

1 cup of half and half

1 large 28oz can of peeled whole tomatoes – San Marzano imported Italian plumb tomatoes have the best flavor

1 8oz can of any store brand tomato sauce

1 pound of pasta, your choice – we use linguine, penne, rigatoni, shells – all work great

1 teaspoon of kosher salt

2 pinches of nutmeg

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Heat large deep skillet or 2qt pot, melt butter on medium high then dump in carrots, celery, onion and garlic – stir, cook til onion just starts to become transparent, about 5 min;

Add meat, brown until the pink is just gone;

Add the half and half, bring to medium boil, reduce heat a bit and ‘high’  simmer until all white is all evaporated and only milk solids are left (yellowish, looks like oil) about 15 minutes;

Add the wine, same drill – bring to medium boil, reduce heat a bit – ‘high’ simmer until gone, about 15 minutes;

Add tomatoes with juice, smashing them by hand as you put them in the pot – add the tomato sauce, nutmeg, salt and basil;

Now here is the secret to getting it right every time:

Turn heat up, bring to a medium boil, reduce heat, reduce heat, reduce heat – so low, that you only see a few bubbles break on the surface now an then… simmer like this, uncovered, for at least 5 hours – stir occasionally, a few times each hour.

Prepare a pound of pasta of your choice (always add a half a hand full of kosher salt to the pasta boiling water);

Stir the parsley in to the sauce just before you’re ready to serve.. spoon sauce over the pasta and top with a little fresh graded asiago cheese.

Fresh green salad, garlic bread, all the usual let’s have with Italian stuff works well with this meal…

World Famous Spaghetti and Meatballs

(Free Bonus below: How to make perfect fresh pasta)

Best spaghetti and meatballs ever; you will surely think you are deep in the hills of Tuscany during the meal – three parts:

A great entire family preparation and cooking experience – kids love to learn how to cook.

Serve with garlic bread and a tossed salad or antipasto (I vote for antipasto)

Part I

Extra virgin olive oil

3 lbs ground chuck (don’t mess with cutting it with pork as many recipes suggest, the full beef flavor is supreme)

(optional: 1lb of sweet or hot (or both) Italian sausage links, sliced to 1 inch pieces)

1 smaller sweet onion chopped fine (the flatter the onion, the more sweet)

5 garlic cloves chopped; use the large bulbs they sell separately

½ cup of fresh Italian (large flat leaf) parsley; only run the knife through them a few times, don’t chop up

1 cup of milk

Five slices of semi dry white bread, crusts removed (set out for a few hours or pop bread in the toaster for 30 sec)

Three eggs (most Italian Chef’s use 1 egg per pound of meat)

5/6/7 grinds of fresh black pepper

3 or 4 pinches of kosher salt

¾ cup of freshly grated asiago or parmigiano-reggiano (I use both)

Four cups of graded mozzarella or 1 brick of fresh, both work well, your preference

Two or three fine bottles of Chianti or Fortissimo

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Open bottle of wine, let set and breathe for at least 5 minutes

Pour wine in to glass, drink a liberal sample and set glass down

In skillet, sautee’ onions and garlic in a little olive oil on med-high for about 3 minutes; you just want to get the oil coming out of the garlic, and the onions about half transparent

Set bread in bowl and pour in the one cup of milk to absorb

Pick up glass of wine and take a few more sips to make sure its doing ok

In a really big bowl: place the ground chuck and pull apart so its all loose chunks, add garlic and onions with the olive oil you cooked them in, squeeze about half the milk from each slice of bread and pull apart in to pieces, beat the eggs in bowl before pouring in; then add the rest of the ingredients and mix gently.

Important: do not “squish” the meat as you mix – just toss everything around very gently with a large spoon or your hands til ingredients are pretty much distributed evenly.

Refill the wine glass and check it out again, it should be getting better

Grab a handful of meat and gently roll each meatball, don’t press the meat together like your making a hamburger patty, just roll it around; make it the size of a golf ball on steroids; place each meatball side by side, but not touching, on a lightly oiled large baking sheet (I use a couple blasts of the spray stuff then spread it around, if you use olive oil it may smoke some while the meat is roasting), your yield will be 20/22 meatballs.  Place baking sheet in fridge for at least 1 hour (when pressed for time I cheat and put it in the freezer for 15 min).

Part II while the meat chilling is taking place, the Sauce:

3 28oz cans of whole peeled tomatoes, San Marzano for superb results, or use one big 100 oz can Costco carries – Rationale: the flavor is far more robust when using whole tomatoes rather that diced, just sayin…

1 8oz can of plain old every day store brand tomato sauce

5 cloves of garlic chopped

½ sweet onion chopped (one medium yellow onion works ok too)

2 tablespoons of fresh Basil roughly chopped or 1 tablespoon of dried

4/5 grinds of fresh ground black pepper

2 pinches of kosher salt

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Sip the wine; make sure its still doing ok -

Open the tomato can(s), drain the liquid in to a to a bowl; in another large bowl, dump in the whole tomatoes then, covering with your other hand, squish them all to small chunks;

In a four quart pot over med-high heat, sauté’ onions and garlic for 3 or 4 minutes, add tomatoes and 8oz can of tomato sauce, bring to a light boil then reduce heat to simmer; continue simmering for 30-40 minutes adding two cups of the reserved liquid from the can after 15 minutes; stir often, this will break down the tomato chunks a bit more. After 30-40 minutes, turn off heat and let stand in pot – ladle out 2 cups of sauce and set aside.

While the sauce is simmering, pre-heat oven to 350 (and let sit at 350 for at least 10 minutes before putting meat in, walls need to be 350 too); put in baking sheet of meatballs still cold, uncovered, and roast for exactly 35 minutes at 350 – if using the optional sausage slices, place them on the baking sheet and roast along with the meatballs.

Remove from oven when done, and place meatballs (and sausage if using) in deep 9×13 baking dish, 4” best; I just use my old fashion oval 6qt blue enamel roaster – cover meatballs with the sauce sitting on the stove, evenly top with the grated or half inch slices of fresh mozzarella and return to the 350 oven for 20 minutes or til the sauce gets bubbly and the cheese just begins to brown; pull out and put in the garlic bread.

Part III – do this at the same time the meatballs are “saucing” in the paragraph above:

Fill the wine glass again

Bring 5 quarts of water to a boil with a hand full of kosher salt mixed in, you want the water the same consistency of sea water, throw in one pound of pasta of your choice and cook til andante’ 8-10 minutes for hard pasta, ONLY 2 minutes and 15 seconds using fresh pasta, dump in colander, do NOT rinse (when using hard or fresh pasta) – I prefer angle hair, linguine or fettuccine with this sauce.

If you have time – making fresh pasta is all the difference in the world; this sounds like a lot of time and work, but it’s really not; add a half hour to your cooking schedule between meatball prep and final saucing stage – an excellent kitchen gadget to feature on your shelf that you will use often once you experience the results: http://bit.ly/f7U8b – set it up, then prepare:

2 1/4 cups of flour

4 eggs

Pour flour on counter in a mound, make a whole in the center and pour in 4 slightly beaten eggs; work the mixture with your fingers until it starts to come together;

Continue to roll and need with your hands – slamming the ball on the counter a few times during the process (does something to the molecules that makes it work better) – until you have an evenly moist and pliable ball of dough;

Separate in to 4 equal balls, cover with plastic wrap and let sit for 15 minutes.

Check your wine glass… refill as may be necessary

Dust the pasta machine rollers with flour, sprinkle some flour on the counter, take one dough ball and flatten it out well with your hands, take an end and feed it in to the pasta machine roller on widest setting, number 1 on the Imperia Pasta maker, start cranking and roll the dough through, fold over, and roll through again (don’t worry about using the extension plate that come with the machine to help guide the dough through the rollers, it just gets in my way);

Change setting to number 2, roll through, fold, roll through again; repeat the process setting numbers 3- 6 rolling the dough through twice each time;

After the run through number 6, you’re going to have a really long piece of dough – cut it in half, dust with flour set aside – repeat the process with the remaining 3 balls of dough;

Note: if you want to use only 2 balls of dough (cooked yield is about 3/4 lbs), you can refrigerate the other 2 for up to 3 days or freeze for up to 30 days.

Attach the pasta cutter to the machine, dust with flour, pick up the first rolled strip of dough and run it through either of the type of pasta cut you want, the Imperia come standard with 2 – tagliolini (pretty much same as angel hair spaghetti) and fettuccine; both cuts work very well with the sauce featured in this recipe.

Set each cut pile aside, dust with flour, until you’re finished cutting all dough strips – give the whole pile of cut pasta a final few tosses, and put all of the pasta in the boiling water at the same time, and remember, boil for ONLY 2 minutes and 15 seconds… gently stirring a few times as it boils (helps separate, and stops from boiling over);

Drain in colander, DO NOT rise with water; if pasta sits a bit longer and gets a little sticky before you’re ready to mix with the sauce and serve (which is ok) – just give a few splashes of water and stir gently (or use the spaghetti getter outer) to loosen up a bit while still in the colander, then;

Place pasta on large platter, toss with the 2 cups of sauce you set aside, sprinkle with fresh grated parmigiano-reggiano, take a large spoon and  cover pasta with melted mozzarella, meatballs and sauce from the baking dish/roaster…

Open a second (or third..?) bottle of wine and let breathe.

Pull the garlic bread out of the oven and enjoy…