Bolognese sauce

Most importantly, OP, do you drain your pappardelle?

o brother

That is a loaded question and I won't respond.

Don't forget a bit of chicken livers!

How much cilantro goes in the sauce?

That looks tasty, OP.

Bolognese sauce doesn't exist in Italy.

R7 Says who?

My bad, r8. Upon further research, I see that the sauce exists, but Spaghetti Bolognese doesn't.

I think "Spag Bol" is English.

I've nearly always used Marcella Hazan's recipe. I've tried others over the past 40 years, but there is none I liked as much. My least favorites were in cookbooks by Barbara Lynch and Lynn Casper Rossetti. I think each was heavy with chicken liver.

Only 2-4 oz of livers R11... Must incorporate bacon or pancetta if using them too R11, or it simply doesn't turn out well. White wine rather than red, and milk.

I use Turkey Mince.

r13 Uh-oh.

Yes, R14 - I started a thread about this and my Turkey Mince was the cause of much DL consternation.

I get my sauce at Trader Joe's their bolognese sauce is very good.

Must use carrots.

[quote] I see that the sauce exists, but Spaghetti Bolognese doesn't.

That's true, in the sense that spaghetti is not the ideal pasta for il bolognese.

Chicken livers are not part of the traditional Bolognese.

Pancetta yes, however bacon, because it's smoked, is not used.

[quote]White wine rather than red, and milk.

Red wine.

Marcella Hazan's recipe:

An eighteenth-century recipe called "The Cardinal's Ragu" from Lynne Rosetto Kasper. Turns out it was cinnamon (not chicken livers) that rendered it unpalatable for me. YMMV.

Barbara Lynch's Bolognese with Chicken Livers. I didn't like it.

Bostonians, are her restaurants as wonderful as they sound?

More than you want to know, most likely.

Hazan uses canned tomatoes. Not authentic. Tomato paste and whole milk only to braise the meat. Also, the nutmeg is bizarre.

Lynch uses lamb in her meat mixture. A travesty.

He's a pig, but Mario Battali's recipe is the best I know of. It's posted at Epicurious.

I would never use tomato paste. And not use canned tomatoes? Yeah, right.

R24 The authentic way is with canned tomatoes. Not fresh.

A few scrapings of nutmeg is traditional (but not necessary). Nothing bizarre about it.

But really the biggest problem for Americans doing a Bolognese is that most of you don't have access to butchers: you need the meat to be coarsely ground. And it must not be a lean cut. You want the belly or something like that with more fat on it. Otherwise it's dry and uninteresting.

Nutmeg is standard, bitches!

R27 - Both chuck and pork bellies have lots of fat. If you want them coarsely spend $25 on a hand grinder. Although even supermarkets have butchers and many will grind the meat for you. I'm not convinced Americans don't have access to high fat beef or pork.

Here is the question I have what difference does it make if you use spaghetti or pappardelle?

Jimmy Dean Brown and Serve Maple Sausage and a rich Montepulciano are the ideal combination.

[quote]Here is the question I have what difference does it make if you use spaghetti or pappardelle?

Now [italic]there's[/italic] a question that will end in tears.

[quote]Here is the question I have what difference does it make if you use spaghetti or pappardelle?

Pappardelle absorbs more sauce, as it has more exposed surface than spaghetti.

Got it R32. It sounds to me like you not talking about absorbing but rather delivering. No noodles are absorbing meat.

[quote]No noodles are absorbing meat.

How many times I've heard this in a bathhouse!

"Delivering" works. Thanks. There's some absorption going on, but "delivering" is better.

R18 I have had Italians in Emilia-Romano make it with chicken livers sautéed with pancetta, ... just a little bit of livers though, a bit of anchovy too, no spice but S&P and fresh grated nutmeg. The meat was a fatty beef chuck. It also contained no garlic, but plenty of carrot, onion, celery, a cup or more of milk, and white wine, passata, and a bit of paste. Go tell them it isn't "authentic".

Ground beef, Prego, voila.

R36 No one would say that's not authentic. The addition of chicken livers, unborn eggs, butter, nutmeg, a bit of anchovy paste are traditional touches that people use. But the basic classic bolognese (which btw is codified by the city of Bologna) is at the link below.

[quote]Here is the question I have what difference does it make if you use spaghetti or pappardelle?

Tagliatelle is the true cut of pasta to eat with Bolognese. They are about 8mm wide. But of course pappardelle (much wider) are good too.

Spaghetti is made made with hard wheat flour and water. And it's dried.

Tagliatelle is made with flour and eggs. They are eaten fresh.They are absorbant. and combine well with a sauce like bolognese.

But of course you can eat bolognese with any pasta you like. I like fusilli. Spaghetti doesn't hold the sauce well.

This week's new "America's Test Kitchen" episode (at least in my area) is .... "To Meat or Not to Meat," featuring Tagliatelle with Bolognese Sauce!

[quote]Hosts Bridget Lancaster and Julia Collin Davison uncover the secrets to making a weeknight-friendly recipe for Tagliatelle with Bolognese Sauce. Then, tasting expert Jack Bishop challenges Bridget to a tasting of crushed tomatoes. Next, science expert Dan Souza explains the surprising science behind why you can’t overcook mushrooms. Finally, test cook Becky Hays makes Julia the ultimate Meatless “Meat” Sauce.

R38 - just out of curiosity why is spaghetti dried and tagliatelle served fresh?

Spaghetti is macaroni, made of semolina and water. Tagliatelle is egg pasta, made of flour and eggs.

If I may add: spaghetti is extruded.

Tagliatelle is rolled out, the flour and egg are kneaded. It is eaten fresh... although it can also be dried out and eaten later.

FWIW, I remember my grandmother making a fresh pasta (with flour & egg) that looked like spaghetti, but the dough then went through one of those manual pasta machines

You can cut fresh pasta thinly but it's not spaghetti. Spaghetti strands are round.

That round shape can't be achieved with a rolling pin or a roller type machine.

There is a cut of pasta fresca that's similar to spaghetti: alla chitarra

There are pasta making extrusion machines for the home, but the results are pretty awful.

spaghetti alla chitarra:

Some Bolognese esoterica.

Marcella Hazan's recipe is considered classic by many. But when she published her recipe in 1973, she had moved from her native Italy to Florida. She freely admitted that it (and the others in her first book) were written based on ingredients that were commonly available in American supermarkets. Flavor over authenticity.

The results spoke for themselves, but it is Hazan's 1978 revision (linked at r20) that everyone raves over. The ingredients didn't change much, but the cooking order (wine before milk earlier; milk before wine later) makes a dramatic difference.

That Hazan doesn't call for different types of meat or exotic ingredients makes her recipe my favorite as well.

R45, Marcella came to live in New York in the 1970s, IIRC, but she didn't move to FL until the turn of the 21st century, at least, according to this obit:

[quote]Fame had come to her quite late in life (she was nearly 50 when her first book appeared) but with undimmed vigour she and Victor expanded her cookery teaching in New York and then in Bologna and Venice. She retired to Longboat Key in Florida only with the dawn of the new century (but still had energy enough to write another book, Marcella Says (2004), to deal with the lack of decent materials in her new home). Hazan also wrote Marcella's Italian Kitchen (1986), Marcella Cucina (1997) and a memoir, Amarcord (2008).

Watch out OP the Breakfast Sausage Troll is going to come out of hiding and badger you about how its just the same as Italian sausage.

The best recipe I have tried from someone that did live and work as a chef in Italy for several years is from Anne Burell. She uses Spaghetti to make it more easy for Americans to grab the concept but the recipe for the sauce is very good and authentic. Best I have ever tasted. It's labor intensive.

R48 I would not recommend that method.

You just do not brown tomato....that's really a no no. Believe me, she did not learn to do that in Italy.

And no water. Water?? You add milk.

She's making things way too strange and complicated.

Bolognese is simple and not labor intensive. See the link at R38. And Hazan's method is fine too.

Anne Burrell's Bolognese recipe begat Lucinda Scala Quinn's Bolognese recipe.

Lucinda Scala Quinn's Bolognese recipe begat Lucinda Scala Quinn's turkey burger recipe. Here, Lucinda makes them with number-one son, Calder Quinn, whom you will adore, maybe even more than you adore Bolognese.

R50 - I don't get the connection. Is it a cooking joke I'm missing?

bolognese bump

I love spaghetti bolognese. I must admit that I go wild with the freshly shredded Parmigiano Reggiano (parmesan cheese) and my dish is pretty much covered with it.

I buy it, made up fresh or frozen, from an Italian grocer’s called “Al Capone’s” along with his pappardelle. He uses fatty chuck, pork, anchovies, cinnamon and carrots. His Alfredo sauce is to die for, too.

There’s no Chicago connection. Al’s family is from Argentina.

Calder Quinn is adorable, but his t-shirt is IN THE WAY!

Is that the one that has meat?

Digging up an old thread to settle and argument with my partner. Is the below link actually Bolognese? I think it's just a basic meat sauce because Bolognese contains milk and carrots and celery. among other stuff. My partner says it's definitely Bolognese..Help me, my gourmet DLers.

To tell you the truth OP, when I have such cravings, I buy fresh sauce from a local traiteur. So easy.

I used to watch Lucinda Scala Quinn's cooking show "Mad Hungry" just in the hope that Calder would show up (and he often did). Good, basic cooking show, too. Too bad she didn't do more of them.