Ragù bolognese is a meat sauce much used with pasta—the typical dish is
“spaghetti bolognese”. It's quite a complicated dish; here are some thoughts on
making it.
I've been modifying this dish over the course of time. This latest recipe bases on my
experience on 27 January 2024; I've slightly reduced the amount of olive oil. Before that I made a
half quantity on 6 July 2020.
Ingredients
quantity
ingredient
step
200 g
celery
1
100 g
carrot
1
500 g
onion
1
300 g
smoked ham
1
100 g
butter
1
40 g
olive oil
2
500 g
beef, minced
2
500 g
pork, minced
2
300 ml
red wine
3
about 600 ml
beef stock
4
140 g
tomato paste
4
25 g
salt
4
500 g
chicken livers
5
40 g
butter
5
Preparation
Coarsely chop the celery, carrot, onion and ham. This mixture is called battuto.
I find it most convenient to mince the ingredients coarsely:
It's very important here to use a coarse disk. If it's done more finely, the resultant
texture is like shredded cardboard.
Put the meat, stock and tomato paste into the pot with the soffritto, bring to the
boil and simmer for 30 minutes. Be careful with the stock: the mixture should be barely
covered in liquid.
Meanwhile, fry the whole chicken livers in butter, let them cool and chop as finely or
coarsely as you prefer. Depending on the dish, you may then add it to the ragù or
use them separately, in lasagne al forno for example.
Notes
This dish has grown over time, and I'm left wondering if the amount of soffritto
isn't too much. But the results taste good.
This is a large quantity. Use a big frying pan and saucepan. The frying pan in particular
should be round 33 cm. Here it is in a 30 cm pan:
I cook the meat for round 30 minutes, and it seems enough. This page describes a
different cut of meat that can require up to 5 hours to cook. That could be worth
investigating.
Freezing
This complicated dish is fortunately a good candidate for freezing. A portion is about 100
to 120 g. I freeze them without the chicken liver, which is best made fresh before
serving—if the dish calls for it.
