eG Cook-Off 57: Bolognese Sauce

[mgaretz]

Not really a traditional Bolognese, but I'm curious about the Marsala. Sounds too sweet to me for a beef sauce. Do you like the flavor of the Marsala as opposed to a dry white or red wine?

The marsala doesn't add that much sweetness, probably the extra added sugar does that! But I like sweet meat sauces! (I use marsala, cream sherry or port in a lot of my dishes.) There's also a ton of tomato paste in my recipe, so the sweetness is used to balance the tomato tartness.

[David Ross]

(I added about 2 tsp. each of dried basil and oregano)

Without the basil and oregano it would have been pretty bland for my taste.

I don't mean to single out David, of course. He is by no means alone in these feelings and practices. It's just convenient to quote his remarks because they are emblematic of something I find fairly typical among those who are used to eating Italian-American food, and who perhaps as a result have certain notions about what "Italian pasta sauce" is supposed to taste like -- which is to say: tomato-based and highly spiced for the most part (unless it completely breaks away into something like carbonara or pesto). A preference for dry herb flavor has especially become a common expectation because using lots of dried herbs has become a way for restaurants and manufacturers of jarred sauces to obscure the lower quality of their base products. And, of course, when one becomes habituated to a certain flavor profile in a certain dish, any retreat from that can seem bland (for example, Calabrians, who have an especially spicy cuisine, are known to bring little containers of dried pepper with them because non-spicy food seems bland). The result has been that many people have come to expect and desire certain flavors in an "Italian pasta sauce" that are not really the point of ragu Bolognese.

This is a reason, I think, why so many are tempted to add herbs and extra tomatoes to dishes like ragu Bolognese which would otherwise seem bland to them. It's because the rich meatiness of ragu Bolognese doesn't taste like what they have come to expect out of an Italian pasta sauce. It's not dissimilar from those for whom "pizza sauce" is a highly flavored, dry-herbed cooked tomato sauce, and who find the Neapolitan base of crushed tomatoes and sea salt bland and uninteresting. This is especially interesting to me because the same people don't generally find, say, beef Stroganoff over egg noodles to be bland and in need of punching up with herbs and extra garlic. Most likely, I think, it's because we have the conception of beef Stroganoff as being rich and meaty and not highly spiced. I would argue, by the way, that tagliatelle al ragu Bolognese has more in common with beef Stroganoff on egg noodles than it does with strongly flavored tomato-based Italian pasta dishes like bucatini all'amatriciana and spaghetti alla putanesca and Italian-American red sauce. So, for me personally anyway, when we start thinking of tagliatelle al ragu Bolognese under a separate paradigm than the one we use to think about these highly spiced/flavored tomato-based pasta dishes, suddenly it doesn't seem like it needs extra tomato, spices, garlic, whatever.

I don't mind a bit if we use my experiences with Bolognese to bring up arguments and discussion. In fact, I would expect just that. I think you might be right about the issue of my flavor profiles for an Italian meat sauce. I couldn't get past the fact the recipe I used didn't have any garlic, and I seemingly was craving the oregano and basil flavors. I intentionally chose dried herbs, not because of convenience but because I think in certain cooked sauces dried herbs add more flavor than fresh herbs. I'll post some photos later today. And again, thanks for the comments. It's all part of the learning curve.

[David Ross]

I started my Bolognese with the "sofrito," a mixture of diced celery, onion, carrot, garlic and diced pancetta, all sauteed in butter-

The vegetables cooked over medium heat until they were soft, about 25 minutes.

[David Ross]

The next building block of the Bolognese was the meat, a mixture of ground beef, pork and chicken livers. Now mind you, I wasn't going into the cooking with the intent to duplicate a tomato-based sauce with meat--the basic tomato/pasta sauce I typically make. I realized up front that Bolognese would be a different sauce than what I was accustomed to. The chicken livers were sauteed in butter then finely minced and stirred into the meats-

Once the meats were cooked down, I added the sofrito to the stew pot-

Next was the "liquid" element-white wine, beef stock and tomato paste-

The Bolognese cooked over a medium-low heat on the stovetop, partially covered, for the next 2 1/2 hours.

[ChrisZ]

I love Heston Blumenthal's bolognese episode of 'In search of perfection'. For those interested it can be viewed on Youtube in 3 parts:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Having watched all three parts, I have to say that this doesn't particularly seem very much like Ragu Bolognese to me. Rather it seems like some highly evolved version of "spag bol," the English bowdlerization of tagliatelle al ragù Bolognese (and for what it's worth, he's quite clear that he's riffing on the English dish, not the Italian one).

Yes, that was the point of the series - take common and/or dubious dishes from the 70s and update them. If you have the books of the series you get several pages of notes on its history, diversity, and of course the clarification that the English 'spag bol' is not the same as ragu alla Bolognese. In the videos linked above they note that even in Italian towns 30 kilometres apart they have different ingredients in their ragu, and in the book they also mention that in Abruzzo they would use lamb and in Sardinia they'd use wild boar - and that of course this is no longer ragu alla Bolognese...

I suspect you'll have trouble watching it in America because of the licensing, but Jamie Oliver is doing a series at the moment about food cultures that have entered Britain, and this weeks involved italian. He made a bolognaise in the way that he thought an Italian would, that is to say, using whatever is available, and not much of it (because they probably couldn't afford a great deal).

This is potentially relevant to the way that the English/American tomato & herb dominant 'spag bol' evolved from the traditional 'ragu alla Bolognese'. Some food historians think that the differences between the traditional Italian ragu and the English forms of 'spag bol' simply stem from the fact that Italian migrants found meat much more affordable than it had been in Italy, so they added meat to the tomato based sauce they would have been more accustomed to, and simply called it Bolognese because it was a famous name. If they're right (and there's a ring of truth to the way it comes down to money) then the English 'spag bol' didn't actually evolve from ragu alla Bolognese, but rather it began as a tomato based sauce that had meat added to it.

One final note - I was watching an Italian cooking show and the chef was making a basic rabbit ragu, but at the end he caramelised some sugar in a frying pan and poured it into the sauce. I haven't seen caramel mentioned before so perhaps it can be added to the list of potential discussion points...

[David Ross]

One final note - I was watching an Italian cooking show and the chef was making a basic rabbit ragu, but at the end he caramelised some sugar in a frying pan and poured it into the sauce. I haven't seen caramel mentioned before so perhaps it can be added to the list of potential discussion points...

Do you recall what the Chef's reasoning was for adding the caramelized sugar? Of course it was to add some sweet element, but was it a case of the caramel in the sugar adding a "deep" caramel, (i.e. "burnt sugar), note? That leads me to wonder if you added caramelized onions to a Bolognese. It would add somewhat of a sweet/caramel note with the added flavor of onion.

[mgaretz]

One final note - I was watching an Italian cooking show and the chef was making a basic rabbit ragu, but at the end he caramelised some sugar in a frying pan and poured it into the sauce. I haven't seen caramel mentioned before so perhaps it can be added to the list of potential discussion points...

Do you recall what the Chef's reasoning was for adding the caramelized sugar? Of course it was to add some sweet element, but was it a case of the caramel in the sugar adding a "deep" caramel, (i.e. "burnt sugar), note? That leads me to wonder if you added caramelized onions to a Bolognese. It would add somewhat of a sweet/caramel note with the added flavor of onion.

Could also be for color as it would brown up the sauce.

[ChrisZ]

Sorry, no additional details and I don't understand Italian so I was just watching. It was a traditional ragu but had two interesting aspects (or three if you count the use of rabbit) - firstly he deglazed with brandy (and flamed it) not wine, and secondly the caramel. Apart from that it was a standard ragu, the caramel went in at the end. I'd be interested to know how much of the brandy flavour remained in the sauce, and whether it has a particular affinity with rabbit or whether it's just what was handy. I guess one day I'll try it and see if it's for colour, flavour, or both.

Someone mentioned goat - it's traditional in Italy to serve goat at particular religious periods of the year. I guess that if you use goat in a ragu it's no longer ragu alla Bolognese, even if everything else stays the same, but it's certainly delicious! I'd have to be honest and say that in a blind taste test I couldn't tell it from lamb, but I wouldn't be worried either way... Generally the meat from the ragu is served as its own course, and the sauce is served with pasta. This again is interesting to compare with the traditional ragu alla Bolognese, where the sauce is solely intended to be served with pasta. But other regional variations may follow the same basic technique to produce a meat dish, of which the sauce is served with pasta as something of a by-product.

[David Ross]

Sorry, no additional details and I don't understand Italian so I was just watching. It was a traditional ragu but had two interesting aspects (or three if you count the use of rabbit) - firstly he deglazed with brandy (and flamed it) not wine, and secondly the caramel. Apart from that it was a standard ragu, the caramel went in at the end. I'd be interested to know how much of the brandy flavour remained in the sauce, and whether it has a particular affinity with rabbit or whether it's just what was handy. I guess one day I'll try it and see if it's for colour, flavour, or both.

Someone mentioned goat - it's traditional in Italy to serve goat at particular religious periods of the year. I guess that if you use goat in a ragu it's no longer ragu alla Bolognese, even if everything else stays the same, but it's certainly delicious! I'd have to be honest and say that in a blind taste test I couldn't tell it from lamb, but I wouldn't be worried either way... Generally the meat from the ragu is served as its own course, and the sauce is served with pasta. This again is interesting to compare with the traditional ragu alla Bolognese, where the sauce is solely intended to be served with pasta. But other regional variations may follow the same basic technique to produce a meat dish, of which the sauce is served with pasta as something of a by-product.

That gives me more ideas--serving the meat as a separate course and the strained sauce with pasta for another course. One could even stretch the theme and do an appetizer with pancetta--sort of a Bolognese tasting menu.

[Margaret Pilgrim]

In our house, Bolognese Sauce does not require a shopping list. It happens when we have cold-closet and pantry ingredients on hand. More specifically when we have a large chunk of left over steak, roast beef, pork or lamb. Even roast chicken or other fowl. It is a process rather than a recipe. Ergo:

Roughly hand chop meat or meats, yes, we occasionally mix meats. Or process briefly. Chop or process carrots, celery and onions. Measure out a cup of white or, yes, sometimes red wine. Equal quantity of milk. Roughly chop either fresh tomatoes (when they are good) or canned (San Marzano type).

Glaze a heavy pan (aka all-clad) with olive oil. Slowly saute the vegetables but do not color. Add oil if dry. Add chopped meat and color but do not brown. Add wine and reduce to almost dry. Add milk, generous grinds of nutmeg and black pepper, teaspoon kosher salt. Reduce to almost dry. Add tomatoes and their juices. Stir well to combine. Bring to a boil then reduce heat and let simmer on low heat until thick and color mellows to an orange-brown. In a perfect world, let cool and hold in fridge for several days. It gets better with age. Or, freeze in convenient portions.

ETA: While I don't add either to ragu, I have no problem with the judicious addition of either good soy sauce or fish sauce to savory recipes. Very few tasters are able to identify the elusive if even discernible added dimension.

Edited November 12, 2011 by Margaret Pilgrim (log)

[Katie Meadow]

After reading this thread I am still confused about the definition of Ragu and the definition of Bolognese. I always thought a ragu was generally a tomato based meat sauce characterized by a soffrito and long cooking of the meat. Most any kind of meat was acceptable, including goat and rabbit or a mix of meats; you used what you had.

Ragu Bolognese was in my mind a regional ragu that differed by the use of less tomato product and the addition of milk. Very useful if fresh tomatoes are out of season and you don't have any canned tomatoes on hand. Should it be called Bolognese if it doesn't have milk in it? I suppose a case can be made that if you live in Bologna you can call it whatever you want. Straighten me out on this.

[Margaret Pilgrim]

After reading this thread I am still confused about the definition of Ragu and the definition of Bolognese. I always thought a ragu was generally a tomato based meat sauce characterized by a soffrito and long cooking of the meat. Most any kind of meat was acceptable, including goat and rabbit or a mix of meats; you used what you had.

Ragu Bolognese was in my mind a regional ragu that differed by the use of less tomato product and the addition of milk. Very useful if fresh tomatoes are out of season and you don't have any canned tomatoes on hand. Should it be called Bolognese if it doesn't have milk in it? I suppose a case can be made that if you live in Bologna you can call it whatever you want. Straighten me out on this.

I'm with you. Bolognese is a "meat" sauce rather than a "tomato" sauce; always contains milk, never herbs. Tomato intensity is cut by meat broth used to maintain liquidity during the long simmer.

Edited November 12, 2011 by Margaret Pilgrim (log)

[David Ross]

I'll be doing a side-by-side taste comparison tommorrow--the first sauce without dairy, the second, traditional version, with cream. Don't know what my taste buds will tell me but I have an inclination I'll prefer the sauce without cream. We'll see.

[Margaret Pilgrim]

I don't love the idea of "cream". Would you consider doing 3? Adding one with milk?

[ChrisZ]

So I'm reading through Blumenthal's 'spag bol' recipe and it says to simmer uncovered, but to top up with water as required so everything is always under liquid. How would this differ from simmering with the lid either on, or partly on? If the aim to maintain the same amount of liquid, surely leaving the lid on would help retain flavours? Even partly on would allow a trickle of condensation back into the pot that presumably has more flavour than plain water?

[David Ross]

I don't love the idea of "cream". Would you consider doing 3? Adding one with milk?

Yes, 1-no dairy, 1-cream, 3-milk!

[nickrey]

After reading this thread I am still confused about the definition of Ragu and the definition of Bolognese. I always thought a ragu was generally a tomato based meat sauce characterized by a soffrito and long cooking of the meat. Most any kind of meat was acceptable, including goat and rabbit or a mix of meats; you used what you had.

Ragu Bolognese was in my mind a regional ragu that differed by the use of less tomato product and the addition of milk. Very useful if fresh tomatoes are out of season and you don't have any canned tomatoes on hand. Should it be called Bolognese if it doesn't have milk in it? I suppose a case can be made that if you live in Bologna you can call it whatever you want. Straighten me out on this.

Katie,

Ragu is a meat-based sauce. Bolognese is a subtype of the class ragu. Hence ragu Bolognese, ragu alla Napolitana, etc. They are not necessarily tomato based; for example, ragu con fegatini contains chicken livers, white wine, and cream.

Edited November 12, 2011 by nickrey (log)

[Margaret Pilgrim]

Sorry, no additional details and I don't understand Italian so I was just watching. It was a traditional ragu but had two interesting aspects (or three if you count the use of rabbit) - firstly he deglazed with brandy (and flamed it) not wine, and secondly the caramel. Apart from that it was a standard ragu, the caramel went in at the end. I'd be interested to know how much of the brandy flavour remained in the sauce, and whether it has a particular affinity with rabbit or whether it's just what was handy. I guess one day I'll try it and see if it's for colour, flavour, or both.

Someone mentioned goat - it's traditional in Italy to serve goat at particular religious periods of the year. I guess that if you use goat in a ragu it's no longer ragu alla Bolognese, even if everything else stays the same, but it's certainly delicious! I'd have to be honest and say that in a blind taste test I couldn't tell it from lamb, but I wouldn't be worried either way... Generally the meat from the ragu is served as its own course, and the sauce is served with pasta. This again is interesting to compare with the traditional ragu alla Bolognese, where the sauce is solely intended to be served with pasta. But other regional variations may follow the same basic technique to produce a meat dish, of which the sauce is served with pasta as something of a by-product.

That gives me more ideas--serving the meat as a separate course and the strained sauce with pasta for another course. One could even stretch the theme and do an appetizer with pancetta--sort of a Bolognese tasting menu.

If you are able to remove the meat from the sauce, you are not making Bolognese; you are making Sunday gravy, another worthy cookoff subject.

[Mjx]

. . . . something I find fairly typical among those who are used to eating Italian-American food, and who perhaps as a result have certain notions about what "Italian pasta sauce" is supposed to taste like -- which is to say: tomato-based and highly spiced for the most part (unless it completely breaks away into something like carbonara or pesto). A preference for dry herb flavor has especially become a common expectation because using lots of dried herbs has become a way for restaurants and manufacturers of jarred sauces to obscure the lower quality of their base products. And, of course, when one becomes habituated to a certain flavor profile in a certain dish, any retreat from that can seem bland . . . .

This is a reason, I think, why so many are tempted to add herbs and extra tomatoes to dishes like ragu Bolognese which would otherwise seem bland to them. It's because the rich meatiness of ragu Bolognese doesn't taste like what they have come to expect out of an Italian pasta sauce. It's not dissimilar from those for whom "pizza sauce" is a highly flavored, dry-herbed cooked tomato sauce, and who find the Neapolitan base of crushed tomatoes and sea salt bland and uninteresting. This is especially interesting to me because the same people don't generally find, say, beef Stroganoff over egg noodles to be bland and in need of punching up with herbs and extra garlic. Most likely, I think, it's because we have the conception of beef Stroganoff as being rich and meaty and not highly spiced. I would argue, by the way, that tagliatelle al ragu Bolognese has more in common with beef Stroganoff on egg noodles than it does with strongly flavored tomato-based Italian pasta dishes like bucatini all'amatriciana and spaghetti alla putanesca and Italian-American red sauce. So, for me personally anyway, when we start thinking of tagliatelle al ragu Bolognese under a separate paradigm than the one we use to think about these highly spiced/flavored tomato-based pasta dishes, suddenly it doesn't seem like it needs extra tomato, spices, garlic, whatever.

I find the sauce so intense, it is difficult for me to perceive it as bland, and I wonder whether the 'blank slate' aspect of the seasoning doesn't also simply tempt people to play with that aspect of it. I mentioned upthread that for me, this is a very medieval-feeling sauce, and accordingly, a clove and a bay leaf find their way in. Their presence is unobtrusive, but seems to mesh nicely with a certain gamey quality of bolognese.

. . . .

One final note - I was watching an Italian cooking show and the chef was making a basic rabbit ragu, but at the end he caramelised some sugar in a frying pan and poured it into the sauce. I haven't seen caramel mentioned before so perhaps it can be added to the list of potential discussion points...

Sounds to me like another version of using a sweet note in a dish involving game. Haven't seen this particular version before, but sweet preserves often show up, and also grape must.

I don't love the idea of "cream". Would you consider doing 3? Adding one with milk?

Unless the quantity of cream exceeds that traditionally used, it doesn't make the sauce creamy, because it (and the milk) is cooked down for so long. That said, I find versions with cream a bit... dull, but this may be at least partly attributable that to the fact that I find the concept of dairy in a savoury dish really, really off-putting (and, since the traditional arguments against using dairy in bolognese are as strong as those for it, I won't be using any when I make the sauce a little later today).

[ChrisZ]

As with many legendary recipes, there are literally thousands of variations of Bolognese-the meat, the vegetables, the spices, the “tomato” element and the pasta are all points for heated discussion and that’s exactly why we’ve chosen Bolognese sauce for our latest Cook-off.

I mentioned earlier that I really like the Bolognese episode of "In search of perfection", and I've experimented with Heston Blumenthal's recipe for the perfect "spag bol" a few times. So I decided to give it another go, this time with photos.

This is an interesting recipe because it's the result of an attempt to bridge two worlds- firstly the world of the traditonal ragu alla Bolognese, and secondly the world of the English/American/Australian "spaghetti bolognese" - a tomato based pasta dish that, as Heston says, "does not exist in Italy". As I mentioned a few posts earlier, it is theorised that the westernised "spaghetti bolognese" didn't actually evolve from the traditional Bologna dish, but rather was the result of Italian migrants adding meat to their more familiar tomato sauces simply because they could afford to. If this is true, then ragu alla Bolognese and spaghetti bolognese have quite separate histories.

So this recipe was developed for a TV show, and it's more complex than the traditional ragu alla Bolognese while trying to remain familiar to those who grew up with 'spag bol'. Regardless of how you think it fits into the overall Bolognese discussion, it's a very tasty dish and is one of Heston's more accessible recipes. I've veered away from the exact recipe in a few places - firstly I've used 100% beef where the original calls for a mix of ox tail and pork, and secondly I haven't used the exact herbs that Heston uses.

1) The first step, recognisably Heston, is to caramelise some onions with star anise.

2) I roughly cut up the beef and added my own variation - a few teaspoons of liquid smoke.

After a short period of marination, the beef was quickly browned in a smoking hot pan, and the pan was deglazed using chardonnay.

3) The basic soffrito (heavy on the carrots) is sauteed while the chardonnay reduces in the background.

4) Then the meat, chardonnay reduction and caramelised onions are added along with 1 cup of milk, some water, and then everything is left to simmer gently for 6 hours.

5) With vine-ripened tomatos on sale, I decided to stick to the actual recipe and make the tomato sauce from scratch. Normally I'd just use 2 cans. The fresh tomatos are peeled, and the pulpy centres are scooped out and collected in a strainer. This pulp is salted and left to drain- the liquid actually has more flavour than the tomato flesh, which is chopped up and added to a saucepan that has sauteed onions in it. Out of interest, I weighed the liquid that drained from the tomato pulp and it was exactly 250grams. The pulp is discarded, the liquid is added to the tomatos.

6) So now we have two pots simmering on the stove. The large one with the meat in it, and the smaller one with the tomato sauce.

7) This is where we veer away completely from traditional, and firmly into Heston territory! The tomato sauce is pepped up with a range of ingredients that add depth and umami, none of which you'll see in an Italian recipe for Bolognese! These include sherry vinegar, fish sauce, worcestershire sauce, tobasco sauce, more star anise, cloves and ground coriander seeds. I have loads of parmesan rinds saved in the fridge so I added a small piece too.

8) These two pots are left to simmer. When the tomato sauce has simmered for two hours it has reduced to a thick consistency and tastes absolutely delicious, with loads of depth while still being instantly recognisable as a tomato sauce.

9) To finish off the tomato sauce, about 100mls of olive oil is added and the sauce is "fried" over high heat for a few minutes. The sauce is then drained and the oil saved. I actually weighed the oil to see how much of it I got back and I ended up with slightly more than the 100ml I started with! This is a rich, deep yellow, tomato flavoured oil that will be used to dress the pasta.

The tomato sauce is now added to the meat and the ragu is left to simmer for an addional two hours.

10) Finally, after a total of 8 hours simmering, the dish is ready to serve. I boiled supermarket parpadelle and when it was cooked, it was drained and then tossed in some of the tomato oil. In the last few minutes, fresh herbs were stirred through the ragu (basil and thyme), along with a few dobs of butter. The ragu is seasoned with salt, pepper and a dash of sherry vinegar, and served on top of the pasta with a dash of fresh parmesan. Some more tomato oil is dotted around the plate.

I've made this recipe a few times and cut different corners every time. It's safe to say that the single most defining element of the recipe is the star anise, which adds a distinctive depth that doesn't taste like aniseed or fennel. I don't think I'll bother with the fresh tomatoes again, as it's much easier to use canned and the end result is basically the same. The fresh herbs don't seem to add much either, and I'm not sure you'd notice if they weren't there at all.

It's definitely not ragu alla Bolognese, and it's a step up from basic 'spag bol'. But it's delicious!

[slkinsey]

After reading this thread I am still confused about the definition of Ragu and the definition of Bolognese. I always thought a ragu was generally a tomato based meat sauce characterized by a soffrito and long cooking of the meat. Most any kind of meat was acceptable, including goat and rabbit or a mix of meats; you used what you had.

Ragù more or less means "a dish or sauce made out of a bunch of ingredients long-cooked together with meat." Think about its relationship to the French word ragoût. This may include tomatoes, but it doesn't have to include tomatoes. The meat is almost always present in the sauce, but it doesn't have to be present in the sauce and the meat may be served in as a separate course (e.g., ragù Napoletano). As with many things Italian, there is not great consistency in nomenclature and regional customs abound (Italian only became the majority language spoken in the home as recently as the 1980s!). However, generally speaking, if the meat is cooked in the sauce but not included in the sauce, the sauce is usually called "sugo di [something]" -- unless, of course, it is a preparation that's traditionally called "ragù." So, for example, I have some friends who run a trattoria and when they make ossobuco they sometimes have a lot of leftover braising sauce. This leads to a special of "gnocchi al sugo di ossobuco" (or tagliattelle or whatever pasta they feel like serving with the ossobuco braising sauce). I suppose they could technically call it "ragù di ossobuco," but unless it contained substantial amounts of ossobuco meat in the sauce my experience is that they wouldn't be likely to call it that.

[David Ross]

As with many legendary recipes, there are literally thousands of variations of Bolognese-the meat, the vegetables, the spices, the “tomato” element and the pasta are all points for heated discussion and that’s exactly why we’ve chosen Bolognese sauce for our latest Cook-off.

I mentioned earlier that I really like the Bolognese episode of "In search of perfection", and I've experimented with Heston Blumenthal's recipe for the perfect "spag bol" a few times. So I decided to give it another go, this time with photos.

This is an interesting recipe because it's the result of an attempt to bridge two worlds- firstly the world of the traditonal ragu alla Bolognese, and secondly the world of the English/American/Australian "spaghetti bolognese" - a tomato based pasta dish that, as Heston says, "does not exist in Italy". As I mentioned a few posts earlier, it is theorised that the westernised "spaghetti bolognese" didn't actually evolve from the traditional Bologna dish, but rather was the result of Italian migrants adding meat to their more familiar tomato sauces simply because they could afford to. If this is true, then ragu alla Bolognese and spaghetti bolognese have quite separate histories.

So this recipe was developed for a TV show, and it's more complex than the traditional ragu alla Bolognese while trying to remain familiar to those who grew up with 'spag bol'. Regardless of how you think it fits into the overall Bolognese discussion, it's a very tasty dish and is one of Heston's more accessible recipes. I've veered away from the exact recipe in a few places - firstly I've used 100% beef where the original calls for a mix of ox tail and pork, and secondly I haven't used the exact herbs that Heston uses.

1) The first step, recognisably Heston, is to caramelise some onions with star anise.

2) I roughly cut up the beef and added my own variation - a few teaspoons of liquid smoke.

After a short period of marination, the beef was quickly browned in a smoking hot pan, and the pan was deglazed using chardonnay.

3) The basic soffrito (heavy on the carrots) is sauteed while the chardonnay reduces in the background.

4) Then the meat, chardonnay reduction and caramelised onions are added along with 1 cup of milk, some water, and then everything is left to simmer gently for 6 hours.

5) With vine-ripened tomatos on sale, I decided to stick to the actual recipe and make the tomato sauce from scratch. Normally I'd just use 2 cans. The fresh tomatos are peeled, and the pulpy centres are scooped out and collected in a strainer. This pulp is salted and left to drain- the liquid actually has more flavour than the tomato flesh, which is chopped up and added to a saucepan that has sauteed onions in it. Out of interest, I weighed the liquid that drained from the tomato pulp and it was exactly 250grams. The pulp is discarded, the liquid is added to the tomatos.

6) So now we have two pots simmering on the stove. The large one with the meat in it, and the smaller one with the tomato sauce.

7) This is where we veer away completely from traditional, and firmly into Heston territory! The tomato sauce is pepped up with a range of ingredients that add depth and umami, none of which you'll see in an Italian recipe for Bolognese! These include sherry vinegar, fish sauce, worcestershire sauce, tobasco sauce, more star anise, cloves and ground coriander seeds. I have loads of parmesan rinds saved in the fridge so I added a small piece too.

8) These two pots are left to simmer. When the tomato sauce has simmered for two hours it has reduced to a thick consistency and tastes absolutely delicious, with loads of depth while still being instantly recognisable as a tomato sauce.

9) To finish off the tomato sauce, about 100mls of olive oil is added and the sauce is "fried" over high heat for a few minutes. The sauce is then drained and the oil saved. I actually weighed the oil to see how much of it I got back and I ended up with slightly more than the 100ml I started with! This is a rich, deep yellow, tomato flavoured oil that will be used to dress the pasta.

The tomato sauce is now added to the meat and the ragu is left to simmer for an addional two hours.

10) Finally, after a total of 8 hours simmering, the dish is ready to serve. I boiled supermarket parpadelle and when it was cooked, it was drained and then tossed in some of the tomato oil. In the last few minutes, fresh herbs were stirred through the ragu (basil and thyme), along with a few dobs of butter. The ragu is seasoned with salt, pepper and a dash of sherry vinegar, and served on top of the pasta with a dash of fresh parmesan. Some more tomato oil is dotted around the plate.

I've made this recipe a few times and cut different corners every time. It's safe to say that the single most defining element of the recipe is the star anise, which adds a distinctive depth that doesn't taste like aniseed or fennel. I don't think I'll bother with the fresh tomatoes again, as it's much easier to use canned and the end result is basically the same. The fresh herbs don't seem to add much either, and I'm not sure you'd notice if they weren't there at all.

It's definitely not ragu alla Bolognese, and it's a step up from basic 'spag bol'. But it's delicious!

Thank you for your in-depth review of a decidely uncoventional Bolognese. You've brought forward some very interesting issues that we've already lightly touched upon but we should discuss further--1) When we admit to changing the "traditional" Bolognese, whether it be the issue of milk/cream, herbs or the "tomato element," are we not honoring the Mother sauce by introducing new flavors? 2) In the restaurant kitchen it would be sacrilegious to call Chef Blumenthal's dish "Bolognese." So is a professional Chef obligated to call the dish "Ragu in the 'Bolognese' style" when it isn't traditional?

[Mjx]

. . . . You've brought forward some very interesting issues that we've already lightly touched upon but we should discuss further--1) When we admit to changing the "traditional" Bolognese, whether it be the issue of milk/cream, herbs or the "tomato element," are we not honoring the Mother sauce by introducing new flavors? 2) In the restaurant kitchen it would be sacrilegious to call Chef Blumenthal's dish "Bolognese." So is a professional Chef obligated to call the dish "Ragu in the 'Bolognese' style" when it isn't traditional?

Dishes always evolve, but, beyond a certain point they become something else, so they outgrow the original name. But rather than think in terms of feeling obligated to call it a name that says it's almost-but-not-quite bolognese, it makes sense to think in terms of one now having the privilege of calling it something else, say, 'ragù Ross'

My bolognese is simmering away the last of the broth. It smells distinctly livery (I used chicken livers), which makes the clove and bay leaf more important, I think. I'm still pondering the use of gelatin.

[David Ross]

. . . . You've brought forward some very interesting issues that we've already lightly touched upon but we should discuss further--1) When we admit to changing the "traditional" Bolognese, whether it be the issue of milk/cream, herbs or the "tomato element," are we not honoring the Mother sauce by introducing new flavors? 2) In the restaurant kitchen it would be sacrilegious to call Chef Blumenthal's dish "Bolognese." So is a professional Chef obligated to call the dish "Ragu in the 'Bolognese' style" when it isn't traditional?

Dishes always evolve, but, beyond a certain point they become something else, so they outgrow the original name. But rather than think in terms of feeling obligated to call it a name that says it's almost-but-not-quite bolognese, it makes sense to think in terms of one now having the privilege of calling it something else, say, 'ragù Ross'

My bolognese is simmering away the last of the broth. It smells distinctly livery (I used chicken livers), which makes the clove and bay leaf more important, I think. I'm still pondering the use of gelatin.

At first I wasn't sure about the strong flavor of the clove, but now it makes total sense based on your description. Liver and clove seems like a very natural pairing of flavors.

[Margaret Pilgrim]

These variations on a theme suggest a corollary of the Unitarian Women's Annual Stew Dinner. 50 women would volunteer to make a batch of beef stew while strictly adhering to a supplied recipe. Of course, there were always 50 completely different dishes on the banquet table.

I think what is lost in this thread is the frequent subtlety of Northern Italian cooking, causing us to want to "spice it up a bit". Many of us grew up on Italian-American recipes with their dependence on garlic, the heavier herbs (marjoram, oregano, bay) and tomato reflecting origins from Rome through Sicily. Lots of Italian food is "quiet". It got boisterous after coming to America.

Edited November 12, 2011 by Margaret Pilgrim (log)