Huge Bolognese
Prep
20m
Cook
180m
Total
200m
Bigly says
We need to talk about bolognese. HUGE bolognese. The greatest bolognese ever to come out of a Dutch oven, and the Italians have been working on this sauce since before the printing press, before France, before Italy itself — the city of Bologna is named after the sauce, or maybe the sauce is named after the city, the historians can't agree, sad, but either way the lineage is older than the wheel and out of all that bolognese, all those centuries of bolognese, MY one is the best. It's not even close. It's a slaughter.
The so-called food blogs will tell you bolognese is a 'quick weeknight sauce.' That is a LIE. One of the great culinary lies of our time. A real bolognese — a TREMENDOUS bolognese — takes time. Hours. Hours and hours. It simmers. It thinks. It develops what the Italians call 'depth' — a word I happen to know because an old Italian woman cornered me once and made me promise to do it this way. She had hands like stone. She did not negotiate. I do not break that promise.
And the milk. THE MILK. You add milk to bolognese. Other so-called chefs won't tell you this — they want shortcuts, they want a 30-minute version, they want you to think bolognese is just spaghetti sauce with extra steps — but the milk is the secret. The milk softens the meat. The milk tames the tomato. The milk is what separates a REAL bolognese from the sad, watery, weak red sauce with ground beef floating in it that lesser kitchens are passing off as 'bolognese' and getting away with. Not here. Not on my watch. We do it right. Believe me.
Ingredients
- 2 tbspolive oil
- 4 ozpancetta, finely diced(guanciale if you can find it, even better)
- 1 largeyellow onion, finely diced
- 2 mediumcarrots, finely diced
- 2 ribscelery, finely diced
- 3 clovesgarlic, minced
- 1 lbground beef (80/20)
- 1 lbground pork
- 2 tsp, dividedkosher salt
- 1 tspblack pepper
- 3 tbsptomato paste
- 1 cupdry white wine(drink the rest, you've earned it)
- 1 cupwhole milk
- 28 ozcanned whole San Marzano tomatoes, crushed by hand
- 2bay leaves
- 1/4 tspfresh nutmeg, grated
- 1 cup, as neededbeef or chicken stock
- 1 lbtagliatelle or pappardelle, fresh if possible
- 1 cup, plus more for servingParmigiano-Reggiano, grated
Steps
- 1
Heat olive oil in a heavy Dutch oven over medium heat. Add pancetta and cook 5-6 minutes until the fat renders and the pieces are lightly browned.
- 2
Add onion, carrot, and celery. Cook 8-10 minutes, stirring often, until soft and sweet but not browned.
- 3
Stir in garlic and cook 30 seconds until fragrant.
- 4
Add ground beef and pork. Break it up with a wooden spoon and cook 10-12 minutes until no pink remains and the meat begins to brown. Season with 1 tsp salt and the pepper.
- 5
Stir in tomato paste and cook 2 minutes, letting it darken in spots on the bottom of the pot.
- 6
Pour in white wine. Scrape up any browned bits and simmer until the wine has mostly evaporated, about 5 minutes.
- 7
Add milk and simmer until reduced by about half, 6-8 minutes. This step matters.
- 8
Add the crushed tomatoes, bay leaves, nutmeg, and remaining salt. Bring to a gentle simmer.
- 9
Reduce heat to low and cook uncovered, stirring occasionally, for 2 1/2 to 3 hours. Add stock a splash at a time if the sauce gets too dry. The finished sauce should be thick, glossy, and the fat should pool slightly on top.
- 10
Cook tagliatelle in heavily salted boiling water until just shy of al dente. Reserve 1 cup pasta water before draining.
- 11
Add the pasta directly to the pot of sauce with a splash of pasta water. Toss over low heat for 1-2 minutes until the pasta is coated and glossy.
- 12
Remove from heat, stir in half the Parmigiano-Reggiano. Serve immediately with more cheese on top.
One more thing
Three hours. Three hours and you have the greatest bolognese on the planet. People will come over for dinner, they will take one bite, they will go silent. Total silence. The room stops. They look at you like you've done something illegal. You haven't. You've just made tremendous bolognese, and that is not a crime — that is a gift, a gift you give to the people you love and also the people who happen to be nearby. Make extra. Freeze it. Eat it again on Wednesday. The bolognese gets BETTER in the freezer, which is one of life's small unexplained miracles. It's a beautiful thing.
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Substitutions, what to serve it with, why other chefs are wrong about it. He's got opinions.
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