Written by Shawn Krajewski
This is a special bolognese recipe, as it doesn't come from my dad but from the beautiful mind of my mother. She's made this bolognese for all of my birthdays in the last 3 years because it is my favorite sauce. While it doesn't have the same versatility as sauce 17, it is still quite a delicious sauce and one to know if you're a pasta lover. (This is especially true because only certain pasta works well with specific sauces.) So let's get on with the recipe!
Full Recipe:
Ingredients:
1/2 cup of carrots
1/2 cup of onion
1/2 cup of celery
2 strips of bacon
1 tbsp olive oil
1 can (28 ounces) crushed tomato
1 pound ground beef
Salt
1/2 cup of water
3 leaves of basil
6 ounces of heavy cream
Equipment:
Medium shallow pot
Spatula
Liquid measuring cup
Cutting board
Knife
Step 1: Prep
Start by taking your carrots, onions, and celery and placing them on the cutting board. Then, grab your finest knife and dice the vegetables into quarter-inch pieces. Place the vegetables in a small bowl and lightly mix them—this is called mirepoix. A mirepoix is a French culinary term that means a combination of diced vegetables.
Next, take out your bacon and dice it before putting it in a separate container from the vegetables. (You do not want to mix the ingredients yet since they are added to the recipe at different times.) Finally, heat a pot on the stove on medium.
Step 2: Bacon and Vegetables
First, add your olive oil to the pot and cook it for a couple of minutes until it has spread across the entire pot. Next, cook the bacon-------remembering to stir occasionally------until it is golden brown. You should then add all of your mirepoix to the pot and continue to stir. Instead of waiting until the mixture is brown, wait until tender and soft. This should take around 7 to 10 minutes.
Step 3: Beef
Add the ground beef to the pot and mix it with the rest of the ingredients until you have a combined mixture. However, remember to stir the beef more often than the vegetables because you are trying to cook it while working it into the sauce. Therefore, stir constantly and keep shuffling the meat and vegetables so they don't burn. You should do this until the beef is brown and cooked.
Step 4: Tomatoes and Cream
This is the final step, and to begin, add the tomato sauce and the water into the pot. Next, mix everything and let it simmer for 5 minutes. When the 5 minutes are up, mix in the cream and top it with the basil. After 8 more minutes of simmering and stirring, you should have a glorious meat sauce known as bolognese. If you are making pasta, now would be the time to add it to the sauce.
Pasta Tips
Unlike humans, pastas are not created equally, as the shape of a pasta can drastically affect how it tastes and how it works with a sauce. That is why you can't add a random pasta to your sauces, as it might not complement the sauce effectively. But these tips will help you out when choosing a pasta for a sauce.
For heavy sauces, such as meat sauces, you should make wide and hollow noodles. This is because heavy sauces don't sit on thinner noodles. As a result, make sure to use wide hollow noodles because their hollowness allows you to get more sauce. Plus, their wider size makes it easier to easily skewer the food with your fork. In general, I encourage you to use rigatoni.
For more basic sauces like sauce 17 or marinara, I highly recommend long and medium-sized noodles, such as spaghetti. With these types of noodles, you don't have to worry about the sauce getting in the way of planting or not sticking to the noodles. Overall, this will allow you to be more flexible with your pasta and plating.
Lastly, for thin and white sauces, long and flat noodles are my favorites, but almost all pasta shapes work, so choose your favorite!
*Notes:
This recipe is quick, however, it does require a fair amount of babysitting.
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