This is a great weekend bolognese recipe. The long slow simmer really allows the flavors to develop and breakdown into this amazing sauce. More on that below, BUT FIRST THE RECIPE! My process, tips and tricks after the recipe!
While I say this is a weekend bolognese sauce, this is also a great quarantine dinner. I like to start the sauce in the early afternoon, right after lunch so that I can really let it simmer and cook down for at least 4 hours, but the longer the better!
As always gather all your ingredients. You will need 1 pound ground beef, 1 pound ground pork, 2 carrots, 4 stalks of celery, 1 large onion, 4 or 5 cloves of garlic, 2 tablespoons tomato paste, 3/4 cup dry white wine, 2 28 oz cans of whole San Marzano tomatoes ( you can use crushed if you like but I like using whole), and 1 cup of milk.
Finely chop your carrots, cellery and onion. I like to get these chopped as small as I can to help them break down in the sauce better. Once everything is cooked down at the end you will barely be able to see remnant of these ingredients as they will have incorporated into the sauce really well. Thinly slice your garlic. I like to leave these as slices because I like the way the look in the sauce but you can mince them if you like as well. This will look and feel like its too much veggies but this is where a lot of the sauce comes from.
Warm up a dutch oven to medium high heat, add a few tablespoons of olive oil and throw in all your onion, celery, carrots and garlic. Let these soften for a few minutes. About 8 minutes. The mixture will lose some of its color once it starts to cook and soften. This will tell you its ready to add the ground meat.
Add both the ground beef and ground pork at this time and let it brown. It will break down into small pieces just by stirring it in with the veggie mix but if you do see any larger pieces of ground meat just use the edge of your spoon to break it up. Add your tomato paste and let it brown with the meat for a few minutes. Add your wine to deglaze the pan. The wine will also help break down the fat from the meat. Do not drain the grease out of your meat. You want the grease for the flavor of the sauce. It will cook down and incorporate in to the sauce. You can skim it off the sauce towards the end if you really want to remove some of the grease.
While you let your wine cook down to where there is almost no liquid in the pan any more, prepare your canned tomatoes. In a separate large bowl, squeeze the tomatoes in your hand like image 1, but below the tomato sauce level. I made the mistake of squeezing them above the liquid level for the first tomato and squirted tomato juice and seeds all over the floor and my boyfriends clothes. Save your clothes and just squeeze under the liquid.Once everything is sufficiently crushed add directly to your meat mixture. Add your milk as well. Give everything a stir and bring up to a simmer.
While waiting for your sauce to come up to a simmer you can optionally add a few springs of fresh herbs. I like oregano and time. Tie them together with cooking twine and just toss into pot and submerge them. This will make it easy to find the stems later on and pull the herbs out before serving.
Simmer with the lid on for at least 30 minutes but I recommend 2 or more hours. and then simmer with the lid off for at least 30 minutes but the longer you cook this the better your sauce will be. You don't have to babysit this sauce too much there is plenty of liquid to prevent sticking to the pan or burning, but give it a stir every 30 minutes or so.
Since you have a lot of time on your hands I recommend you convince your significant other to make fresh pasta because nothing goes better with fresh sauce than fresh pasta. We'll cover pasta making in a future post, but it is super easy!
Once your sauce has simmered down you will get a beautiful bolognese sauce. All your veggies will have broken down and your meat will be super tender and flavorful. Feel free to skim off the fat that collects at the edge of the pan if you like or leave it, it adds a lot of flavor to the dish. Remove your herbs from the pot. Top your pasta with a good scoop of sauce and garnish with freshly grated parmesan and parsley.
Doesn't that look delicious. Your friends and family won't know what hit them. Add this sauce to lasagna with a creamy béchamel sauce for your next showstopper!
Enjoy and get cooking!
xoxo Emily
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