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.
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
60 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, which seems to have required between 200 and 500 ml in the past.
NOTE: This is the way I have always done it, but this page gives
convincing reasons to cook for up to 5 hours. I'll try that next time.
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.
Freezing
This complicated dish is fortunately a good candidate for freezing. A portion is about 90
to 100 g. I freeze them in double portions of 180 g without the chicken liver, which is
best made fresh before serving—if the dish calls for it.
