Bolognese sauce

If you think of the most common pasta sauce beside the tomato sugo, you will come up with the Bolognese sauce. This is a meat-based sauce in Italian cuisine, typical of the city of Bologna. WRONG!

First of all, of course it is a meat-based tomato sauce that you will get all over the world, EXCEPT of Bologna. In Bologna, there is no Pasta alla Bolognese, there is only Pasta al Ragu.

Origins

The tomato centered meat sauce was invented – many say – outside of Italy by Italians, but first of all who knows and secondly who really cares.

To end the history lesson, the ragu alla Bolognese, has actually just a hint of tomato concentrate and is usually served with tagliatelle pasta, the thick, wide and long kinds.

Butter and milk

Key to the sauce is again the soffritto.

No soffritto, no sauce

You might find recipes that use butter and milk. I do not. I found that neither butter and milk are being used in the original ragu. Therefore, I rather use more olive oil and no milk at all. If you want it to be creamy, add some cream in the end.

Always make more...

Keep in mind, that it is worth to cook a bit more each time that you do this sauce, because you can use the Bolognese sauce in many other dishes. The cooked sauce can be easily frozen in batches for later use.

Of course, this recipe is also gluten-free.

Ingredients

for 8 people

1 kg minced beef

3 cloves of garlic, chopped

3 carrots, finely chopped

3 sticks of celery, finely chopped

2 large onions, finely chopped

800 g of chopped tomatoes (from tins)

10 g of dried oregano

3 tablespoons of tomato paste

250 ml red wine

250 ml beef broth

50 ml olive oil

Salt, pepper

Preparation

Use a large pan where everything will fit in.

The most important thing about a Bolognese is the soffritto:

Put the olive oil in a large pan and heat up the oil. Clean or peel the onions, carrots and celery, chop them very finely and add them to the pan. Add now some salt. After a couple of minutes, add the garlic and the dried oregano. Cook this over medium heat until the vegetables are starting to take colour.

Add the ground beef, a large pinch of salt and a few grindings of pepper. Crumble the meat with a fork, stir well and cook until the beef has lost its raw, red color.

Add the tomato paste and stir it through the cooked meat.

Add the wine, let it simmer until it has evaporated, then add the tomatoes and the broth. Stir thoroughly to coat all ingredients well. When the tomatoes begin to bubble, turn the heat down so that the sauce cooks at a low heat, with just an intermittent bubble breaking through to the surface. Cook, uncovered, for at least 1,5 hours (better more), stirring from time to time.

While the sauce is cooking, you are likely to find that it begins to dry out. To keep it from sticking, add a bit water or broth whenever necessary. At the end, however, no water at all must be left. Taste and add salt and pepper if needed.