Bolognese on my mind

I have this friend. Let’s call him Angelo.

Like me, Angelo is a born and bred Brooklyn guy. He is not an entirely lifelong friend. It just feels that way sometimes.

Some time ago Angelo was traveling in Italy with a group of friends, for around three or so weeks as I recall. He checks in with me regularly when on the road, much the way I do with him when I am traveling.

Angelo being a professional travel writer much of our correspondence deals in hardcore travel intelligence, though just as often we obsess over the foods that we are eating.

It is on this topic where my friend and I frequently part ways.

Honestly, I could just smack the guy sometimes.

Take this last trip, for instance. For around five days and nights Angelo and his group were staying in the historic center of Bologna. As you are likely aware, Bologna is the capital of Italy’s most important culinary region, the Emilia-Romagna. It is also the place where, back in the 18th century, the famous Bolognese sauce was conceived. Not surprisingly Ragu alla Bolognese is ubiquitous in Bologna and its environs. I do not believe I have been to a restaurant in the city that did not offer at least a respectable version of it. (If you’d like to try it at home, here is the recipe for an authentic Ragu alla Bolognese.)

So you can imagine my surprise when the following conversation unfolded, a day or so after Angelo and all his friends had arrived back home to New York.

ME: Okay, let’s talk Bologna. How was Leonida? (Trattoria Leonida, that is, my favorite of all in the city; I’d insisted that he try it.)

ANGELO: Everybody loved it. Really charming and the food was great. It was pretty empty, though. COVID I guess.

ME: Last time we were in Bologna we ate there twice; tried for a third time but they were completely booked the whole weekend.

ANGELO: Not a lot of places were booked on this trip, no matter what town we were in.

ME: So where’d you have the best Bolognese sauce? Tough call huh?

NO ANGELO HERE, JUST SILENCE

ME: So? Where was it?

Words are not often lost to my friend Angelo and so I immediately suspected foul play.

Correctly, as it happens.

ANGELO: Y’know, I didn’t have a Bolognese sauce the whole time. Neither did anybody else, come to think of it.

NO ME HERE, MORE SILENCE

ANGELO: I did have the most amazing roast beef sandwich in Genoa though. It was down the street from that place where you and I …

ME: Hang on a minute. Did you just say that you didn’t have a single Bolognese sauce the whole time you were in Bologna? That half a dozen other people you were with didn’t have a Bolognese sauce either? In FIVE FREAKING DAYS! Seriously?

ANGELO: Right, nobody, I’m pretty sure. But let me tell you about this roast bee…

ME: I really don’t know how you live with yourself, man. I mean, you got eight people eating like two meals a day each for five days, so that’s what, around 80 total meals — in Bologna ferchrissakes — and nobody, not a single person and not a single time, thought to order the most iconic dish in town, possibly in all of Italy? Not even once. That’s just not possible.

ANGELO: Well, yeah, but like I was saying …

ME: If you mention that roast beef sandwich one more time I’m getting in my car right now and driving down there. And when I get to your house I’m gonna kick your sorry ass straight into the Hudson River. I swear I will.

Our dialogue ended here, I’m afraid, the result of my hanging up the phone on my friend Angelo. It was several days before his calls did not (intentionally) go directly to voicemail.

I mention all this because Bologna has been much on my mind of late. As some of you may know, I have been on the shelf for months and months now, due to a freak accident back in August. Since then my prospects — and most certainly my mood — have been anything but optimistic. It will take several more months at least for truly meaningful improvement in either.

Nonetheless, I’m about to try my luck at getting a bit more active. Days ago my wife Joan and I completed plans, albeit reluctantly, for a three-week visit to Italy later this spring. Our first stop will be Bologna. If you have not yet visited the city, I would highly recommend it.

Only don’t invite Angelo along.

He’ll roast beef sandwich you to death, I just know it.

Just don’t call it Bolognese

There isn’t a tomato in sight here. Those reddish/orangeish spots you see? Carrots. Not tomatoes. Like I said.

Aside from that single omission, what we have here is your basic (and very tasty) Bolognese sauce, or, more properly, ragu.

Except that this isn’t a Bolognese ragu at all. Because a Bolognese must include at least a little bit of tomato. You can call it a Bolognese if it doesn’t have tomato, as many people do. But you—and they—would be wrong to do so.

You want a true Bolognese? Then click right here and I’ll show you one. Otherwise bear with me while we prepare what most people call a “White Bolognese.” Most people, that is, except for the ones in Bologna, Italy, home to the classic ragu. And me, of course.

This is pretty simple stuff. Two large carrots, three celery stalks, a medium-size onion and around 1/4 pound of pancetta, all diced pretty fine.

In a dutch oven slowly brown the pancetta in olive oil at a low heat.

When the pancetta has lightly browned (not too crispy) add the vegetables and 1/2 cup of dry white wine or vermouth and cook at medium to high heat until the wine has evaporated.

Here I’ve finely diced 1 pound of beef (boneless short rib here) and around 1/4 pound of pork (boneless rib). Feel free to use just a pound of beef (even ground), as I was just playing around by adding a little pork. Hell, I’d planned on throwing in a couple chicken livers but forgot that I’d bought them and so they stayed in the fridge. Dammit!

Once the wine evaporates add the meat and allow it to brown lightly.

The add around two cups of homemade stock (I used chicken stock, but only because I didn’t have any beef stock left in the freezer).

As the sauce is simmering (at medium-low heat) keep a small pot filled with a quart of whole milk on extremely low heat. Every 15 minutes or so stir in a little milk until it’s used up. In around two hours the sauce will be done.

Even though I wasn’t making a Bolognese I thought it’d be nice to use one of the brass pasta cutters we picked up in Bologna last year. But you go ahead and use any pasta you like.

This is a shot of the unadulterated end result, but I highly recommend topping the pasta with some Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Oh, and if you’re not in a hurry, prepare the sauce a day in advance, not the day you want to eat it. This is definitely the kind of thing that improves overnight.

No matter what you call it.

Ragu alla Bolognese

Pay attention because this is important: It only looks like a pasta course you have seen me prepare here a couple hundred times before.

But it isn’t. Until a few weeks ago I didn’t even know such a thing as this existed. I swear.

What you have here is the official, government-sanctioned recipe for Ragu alla Bolognese, commonly referred to as Bolognese Sauce. The recipe was “notarized and deposited” in the Chamber of Commerce of the City of Bologna on October 17th, 1982, by “solemn decree” of the Accademia Italiana della Cucina (the Italian Academy of Cuisine).  

Who knew?

Turns out, not many. My friend Biancamaria is from Bologna and she never heard of any “official” Ragu alla Bolognese recipe. Which is saying something because, as she tells me, “when I was a child every Sunday we had ragu.” 

I didn’t catch up with Bianca on a recent visit to Bologna (she’s living in the English countryside now with Massimo and their daughter Delfina) but on at least four occasions I got to sample authentic Ragu alla Bolognese. And it’s nothing like many of the so-called Bolognese sauces you’ll come across elsewhere. 

For starters, a lot of “Bolognese” sauces are basically tomato sauces that have meat in them. A real Bolognese is a meat sauce that has only a touch of tomato. The earliest examples of Ragu alla Bolognese didn’t include any tomato at all. And forget about using pasta shapes like spaghetti; nobody in Bologna would even think of pairing their ancient ragu with anything but a flat, fresh pasta such as tagliatelle. Just ask for tagliatelle at a restaurant in Bologna and watch what you get. Same thing if you ask only for ragu.

Anyway, and as you no doubt have surmised, I just had to give the “notorized” recipe a shot. I’ve reprinted it in its entirety below, but here is the link as well. Just a note about the ingredients: My quantities are not exactly those shown in the recipe. I have, however, made the necessary adjustments to follow the recipe as closely as possible.



Start out by finely chopping equal amounts of onion, carrot and celery. Here we’ve got just under 3 ounces of each.



Finely dice around 1/2 lb. of pancetta and then brown in a Dutch oven that’s large enough to accommodate all the recipe’s ingredients.



Add the onion, carrot and celery to the browned pancetta and saute until the vegetables are nicely softened.



Okay, about the meat. The recipe calls for ground skirt steak, but skirt wasn’t available and so I went with tender hanger steak instead. Rather than grind the meat I decided to very finely dice it, as I have seen both approaches taken. This is one pound of beef.



Once the vegetables have softened add the beef and allow it to brown.



Then add 1/2 cup of wine (I went with white but red is also approved) and, here’s the tricky part, a small amount of tomato. The recipe calls for either tomato sauce or highly concentrated tomato paste. I made a small quantity of very simple tomato sauce and added around a cup here. I also added a little homemade beef stock, as this is also mentioned in the recipe.



At this point things are supposed to simmer for two hours, at a low flame. But don’t expect to make yourself scarce for these couple hours. Because little by little you’ll need to stir in very small amounts of whole milk, at fairly regular intervals, until you’ve gone through one full cup.



Speaking of milk, an “optional but advisable” addition to the sanctioned recipe is panna di cottura. Basically that means whole milk that has been slowly simmered to half its original volume. That’s around 1 1/3 quarts of milk you see in the pot there. While the sauce was slowly simmering so was the milk, until it was halved. 

After two hours of simmering (and only a slight addition of salt and pepper to taste) this is what the ragu looked like. But we aren’t finished yet.



The next step is to slowly stir in the panna di cottura (the reduced whole milk). Since this step was “advisable” I decided to throw caution to the wind and use up all the milk.

I know, this looks awfully cream sauce-like, doesn’t it. I was nervous too.

But it turns out I didn’t need to be. This was a damned fine ragu that I’ll be working on until it tastes like I’m back in Bologna. 

If that doesn’t work, there’s always Alitalia.

The Official Ragu alla Bolognese
Reprinted from Accademia Italiana della Cucina. 

Ingredients

300 gr. beef cartella (thin skirt)
150 gr. pancetta, dried
50 gr. carrot
50 gr. celery stalk
50 gr. onion
5 spoons tomato sauce or 20 gr. triple tomato extract
1 cup whole milk
Half cup white or red wine, dry and not frizzante
Salt and pepper, to taste.

Procedure

The pancetta, cut into little cubes and chopped with a mezzaluna chopping knife, is melted in a saucepan; the vegetables, once again well chopped with the mezzaluna, are then added and everything is left to stew softly. Next the ground beef is added and is left on the stovetop, while being stirred constantly, until it sputters. The wine and the tomato cut with a little broth are added and everything left to simmer for around two hours, adding little by little the milk and adjusting the salt and black pepper. Optional but advisable is the addition of the panna di cottura of a litre of whole milk at the end of the cooking.

Lamb & Pine Nut Bolognese

Shyster Jersey Lawyer Friend’s birthday, surely a day of meaning and reflection to her, basically boils down to just one thing to me: I’ve got to cook the woman some lamb.

This is not a negotiable point. Lamb is my friend’s very favorite food. She has told me this on many occasions, most frequently around those times that her birth date draws near.

Demanding as she is, the woman highly values experimentation. And so when the thought occurred to me to meld lamb and pine nuts into a pasta sauce, not once did I concern myself about disappointed her.

Or all of you.

Finely chop three carrots, three celery stalks, one medium red onion, one leek, six garlic cloves and some hot pepper (optional), then saute in olive oil under medium heat until softened.

Add 2 pounds of ground lamb and 1/2 cup toasted pine nuts, season with salt and freshly ground black pepper, incorporate and cook until browned.

Add one cup of red wine, increase the heat to high and reduce until the wine has evaporated.

Add one cup of milk. Cook until the milk has evaporated.

Add two 28-ounce cans of tomatoes and 1/2 cup loosely packed chopped fresh mint leaves, turn the heat down to low and allow the sauce to simmer very gently for around two hours. (If the sauce reduces too much or becomes too thick you can always add some more milk or even water.)

When the sauce is done cooking add another handful of chopped fresh mint, stir and simmer for a minute or two.

And then serve with the pasta of your choice.

This sauce, like so many others, tastes even better the next day. And so I made sure to send my friend home not only with a big hunk of birthday cake but also a container of what turned out to be a really nice sauce.

Pork Bolognese sauce

When it comes to Red Sauce I am a very patient man. Nine times out of ten I don’t serve the sauce on the day that I make it; I serve it the next day, after the flavors have had time to knit together some. My friend Fred has on occasion given me grief over this practice, wonders if I am a tad overzealous.

I do not invite my friend Fred over for Red Sauce anymore.

I did invite my friends Marc and Beth over for some last Saturday, but it was a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing. I’d planned on making a Bolognese sauce that afternoon, only it was supposed to be for Sunday dinner. I use veal in Bolognese, but since we’d be eating that same day I switched gears and decided to use pork instead. My reasoning was thus: pork has more flavor than veal, and so it’d make a much tastier same-day sauce.

As it happens, this reasoning turned out to be pretty sound. I’d not used pork in Bolognese sauce before, but I absolutely plan to again.

Finely chop two large carrots, two celery stalks, one small onion, three garlic cloves and some hot pepper (optional, though I used a whole fresh cayenne here) and saute in olive oil under medium heat until softened.

Add 1 1/2 pounds of ground pork, season with salt and freshly ground black pepper, incorporate and cook until browned.

Add one cup of dry white wine, increase the heat to high and reduce until the wine has evaporated.

Add 1/2 teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg and one cup of whole milk. Cook until the milk has evaporated.

Add one 35-ounce can of tomatoes, turn the heat down to low and allow the sauce to simmer very gently for around three hours. (If the heat is on too high and the sauce reduces too much you can always add some more milk.)

This sauce cooked for around four hours, actually.

And Marc and Beth and My Associate and myself ate the whole thing!

Sorry, Fred.

Lasagne alla Bolognese

Heading out for a few days, to a land where they don’t know from wireless, and so here’s something for you to eat while I’m gone.

If you’re not interested (That so?), or aren’t hungry (The hell you doing here then?) do me a favor and toss it in the fridge. I’ll have it when I get back.

I made you the pasta. (You’re welcome.)

And the Bolognese sauce. (Pleasure.)

Bechamel, of course. (Piece of cake.)

The laying on of the pasta sheets. (A spiritual moment, no?)

Until I ran out of room. (And sauce.)

Arrivederci.