Bolognese with Pasta
If there is just one pasta sauce I can make with my eyes closed it’s Bolognese, the meaty, long-cooking specialty of Bologna. I first made it with Francesca Tori during a visit to her home in Bologna. She only serves it with handmade tagliatelle pasta— never spaghetti. “Americans invented spaghetti and meat sauce. We would never put spaghetti with meat sauce,” she told me. That afternoon, Francesca and I made homemade tagliatelle by hand, cutting long ribbons of pasta and forming them into little nests, then dropping them into salted boiling water. (If I don’t feel like making homemade pasta, I purchase dried tagliatelle from the gourmet shop.) The ingredients for the sauce are simple and humble, but the secret to making perfect Bolognese is time. Lots of time: Not only for chopping the vegetables, but the hours of slow cooking. The aroma of Bolognese simmering on the stove is one of my family’s favorite memories. I always double the recipe so I can freeze a portion or give it away to someone in need of comforting.
Ingredients
Serves 6-8
Bolognese with Pasta:
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 carrots, minced
2 stalks of celery, minced
2 medium onions, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoons kosher salt, divided
1 pound ground pork
1 pound ground beef
1 1/2 cups red wine
1 (14 ounce) can tomato sauce
2 cups beef broth
3 tablespoons butter
16 ounces dried (or 26 ounces fresh) tagliatelle pasta
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for serving
Process
Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add the carrots, celery, and onions and sprinkle with 11⁄2 teaspoons of the salt. Cook slowly until the vegetables begin to brown, about 20 minutes. Stir in the garlic.
While the vegetables are browning, cook the ground pork and beef in a large skillet over medium-high heat until browned, breaking up the bits of meat. Add the remaining 11⁄2 teaspoons of salt.
Drain off most of the fat but leave a little bit. Add the meat to the vegetable mixture and stir to combine. Add the wine, tomato sauce, and beef broth. Bring to a simmer and cook uncovered for at least 2 hours, stirring occasionally, until the sauce is slightly thickened. Taste to see if more salt is needed and stir in the butter. (At this point, you can portion out any sauce you want to freeze for later.
Let cool to room temperature and put into a freezer bag or airtight container and freeze for up to 3 months.) Keep the sauce warm while you cook the pasta. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add an abundance of kosher salt. Add the tagliatelle and cook until al dente according to package instructions. (Keep in mind that if you are using fresh pasta, it will cook much faster than dried pasta.)
Drain the pasta, reserving 1⁄2 cup of cooking water. Add the pasta to the sauce, toss to coat, and add some of the reserved pasta water if it seems dry, then stir in the grated Parmesan. Serve with more cheese on top.
