Delicious Bolognese Sauce

Mr Bubbles

Alright, so recently I've developed a taste for pasta, but every time I try to make my own sauce for it, it just ends up tasting entirely lifeless and dull.

Edible certainly, but with nothing interesting going on whatsoever, like eating tomato flavoured dust.

So what would be the best course of action for creating an entirely delicious bolognese sauce?

bsjezz

a few tricks i've come upon in generating the best bolognese* recipe in the world:

- use red wine. a (healthy) glug at the start, reduced with your onions and garlic, is the best way to retain the flavour while quickly cooking off the booziness. then another little splash when your sauce is built up

- use beef. succesful reports of a half veal/pork mince mix are greatly exaggerated

- use one can of crushed or diced tomatoes and two spoonfulls of tomato paste (for about 300gms of meat). you can also use passata, but it's not as good. add small splashes of water to get the consistency right

- use oregano. basil, particularly fresh basil, is worthless in a bolognese sauce

- a pinch of brown sugar does amazing things

- for god's sake, taste as you go, and season. getting the salt right is probably the most important element


*i don't use celery. get over it

DirtyDirtyVagrant

Start with carrots and onions (and garlic if you like. Grated. 1/2 cup of each (not the garlic - maybe 2-3 cloves of that), we'll say. And some oregano.

Sweat it for a bit in some olive oil. Add your ground beef or lamb or whatever (a pound) and brown it. Then, create a well in the pan and add about 1-2 tablespoons of tomato paste. Heat that for a bit on the bottom of the pan and it'll lose that metallic taste that tomatoes sometimes get. Add maybe a 1/2 cup of white wine and heat that for a bit, and then add another 1/2 cup or so of milk.

Make sure you use thicker noodles (linguine works very well) because this is a very dense sauce. It's supposed to be.

Add cheese to taste.

bsjezz

oh, and if you're tempted to drain out the fat, you're doing it wrong. buy leaner mince

Trentus

I tend to use a sweeter wine and don't bother to add sugar. I've also recently taken to adding some star anise (not too much) to enhance the flavour of the beef. Just remember to remove it after cooking if you're not using the grated powdery stuff (you don't want to be chewing on a big chunk of it). I also add mushrooms because they're awesome.

The slower and longer you cook that sucker the better it'll be. Just don't let it dry out.

Usagi

Might I suggest Serious Ragu Bolognese

Or if you're uncomfortable using chicken livers (doo eet, so delicious) Epicurious has a good one too: Pasta Bolognese

Don't be afraid to explore the internet's bounty of free foodie resources, you'd be surprised what you'll turn up in Epicurious or even FoodTV's recipe banks

Doc

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Field-Grade-Spaghetti-Sauce/Detail.aspx

This is a really, really good recipe. It might not be exactly bolognese, I guess.

Peter Ebel

Usagi wrote: »

Might I suggest Serious Ragu Bolognese

Or if you're uncomfortable using chicken livers (doo eet, so delicious) Epicurious has a good one too: Pasta Bolognese

Don't be afraid to explore the internet's bounty of free foodie resources, you'd be surprised what you'll turn up in Epicurious or even FoodTV's recipe banks

I second this. The FX-cuisine recipe is absolutely delicious. Everyone should try it to know what real ragu bolognese can be, instead of the lazy ground beef with chopped tomatoes it usually is.

You can omit the chicken liver, but you'll be missing out if you do.

KidDynamite

My other half was experimenting with her pasta sauce one day, and read this article.

http://thepauperedchef.com/2010/02/a-gastrique-primer-or-how-to-improve-your-next-tomato-sauce.html

Seriously makes a big difference. It was well worth the (minimal) effort in our case.

Artereis

Make this:

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/05/ryans-bolognese-sauce/

CrossBuster

Usagi wrote: »

Might I suggest Serious Ragu Bolognese

Or if you're uncomfortable using chicken livers (doo eet, so delicious) Epicurious has a good one too: Pasta Bolognese

Don't be afraid to explore the internet's bounty of free foodie resources, you'd be surprised what you'll turn up in Epicurious or even FoodTV's recipe banks

I came here to link to the FX Cuisine recipe. I second it. I sure wish he'd update his site, though.

Anyway, I've made it several times, and it's always been great.