Ragu Alla Bolognese

~| home

tags: food | pasta |

Ragu alla bolognese served on fettuccine with pecorino romano.
Ragu alla bolognese served on fettuccine with pecorino romano.

This recipe is pretty close to traditional but there are a couple of other things that I added in because I think it adds to it in a tasteful way.

Ingredients

  • 2 stalks of celery (diced)
  • 2 carrots (diced)
  • 2 yellow onions (diced)
  • olive oil
  • ¼ lb pancetta (diced)
    • subst: ⅓ lb prosciutto
  • 5 cloves of garlic1
  • 1½ lbs ground beef (70-80% lean)
  • 1½ lbs ground pork2
  • ¼ pound chicken liver (ground or minced)
  • 2 cups white wine3
  • 15 oz tomato paste
  • 2 cups vegetable stock
  • 1 cup whole milk
  • Salt & pepper to taste

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 320F.
  2. To a large pot on medium heat, add the olive oil with the celery, carrots, onions, and pancetta.
  3. Cook until the onions are translucent.
  4. Add the garlic. Mix in and cook until aromatic.
  5. Increase heat to medium-high and add the beef, pork, and liver and using a whisk, mash the meat into the pot to break it up. Try and get as much browning on the meat as you can.
  6. While the meat cooks, a lot of water is going to be created. Let all of this cook off.
  7. Once the water has cooked off, add the wine. Stir, be sure to scrape the bottom as much as you can to get up all of the fond that was made from browning the meat.
  8. Cook until you can’t smell the booze anymore.
  9. Add in the tomato paste. Stir in until completely incorporated.
  10. Add in the vegetable stock. Stir until the stock has been absorbed by the sauce.
  11. Add in the milk. Stir to combine.
  12. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
  13. Cover with a lid and put the pot in the oven. Cook for at least 4 hours, stirring occasionally. If you think it looks a bit dry, add a bit more vegetable stock. If you don’t have anymore vegetable stock, water works as well.
  14. When you think it’s cooked long enough, you can either serve it on pasta, use it to make lasagna, or freeze it.

  1. Garlic isn’t usually considered a traditional ingredient for this kind of sauce. I’ve tried with and without and I think it tastes better with it. ↩︎

  2. Ground pork can sometimes be hard to find because I guess stores make most of it into sausage. If you can’t find any you can try finding a pork loin or something of the sort, slicing it as thin as you can, and then chopping or cutting it for a prolonged period of time until it finally kind of turns into a mince. This takes a while and is exhausting but I prefer it to using sausage. ↩︎

  3. The wine you use is your choice. I prefer using a sauvignon blanc. I prefer using dry white wines but you can use red if you want. ↩︎