A little background: I've been experimenting with Bolognese over the past few months. I came late to the party.
The first few ragús that I made were done with 100% beef, apart from a relatively small amount of pancetta in the soffritto. After four hours of cooking, the results were smooth and silken.
The most recent batch included ground pork in the meat selection, and after a four-hour cooking process, I discovered some harder and chewier bits in the ragú. Very disappointing, especially so since additional cooking time did nothing to reduce or eliminate this failure.
So, a few questions:
Does ground pork require any different cooking techniques compared to beef?
Might a finer or coarser grind of the pork affect its texture and mouth feel after prolonged cooking? What might a fine pork mince do to the texture compared to ground pork?
Do different breeds of pig produce different textural results? Are there any preferred breeds for use in Bolognese? Are there any preferred cuts of pork to use in the ragú?
I've heard that shoulder is a good choice.
What is the approximate fat content for a package of typical supermarket ground pork? I believe the pkg I bought said the fat content was 20%. Pre-packaged ground pork contains meat and fat from various parts of the pig, yes?
