Classic Bolognese Sauce

Alida
May 18, 2018
2 min read

I love Italian food. La-la-la-loved it since I was a little girl and my aunts would whip up a lasange or a giant stock pot of gnocchi (gah-nu-chi as Naf used to pronounce it). Thankfully, I have passed on this love to my daughters. The base for most of my Italian dishes is my bolognese sauce. This is my recipe for my perfect sauce that takes a bit of time but is 100% WORTH IT. You can substitute with veal, maybe lamb and a little bit of sausage. It can be easily made vegetarian by omitting the meat altogether, you don't really need it. Happy simmering!

Ingredients:

1 tbs olive oil

1 medium onion

2 cups crimini or button mushrooms

2 stalks celery

1/2 cup grated carrots

6 cloves of garlic

1 pound extra lean ground beef

348 grams passata

Parmesan cheese rinds (aprox 4x4 inch piece)

2 28 oz cans San Marzano tomatoes

5 basil leaves

2 bay leaves

1 tbs dry oregano

1 tbs dried parsley

salt & pepper to taste

Directions:

Over medium high heat in a large stock pot, saute mushrooms in olive oil until they've developed a brown colour and a little crispiness. Tip from Julia Child: DON'T crowd the mushrooms, they'll never develop colour that way and colour = flavour. Remove mushrooms and reserve for later.

Sweat onion until translucent in colour. Dash a touch of salt to get some of the moisture out. Add in the carrot, celery and cook down 3-5 minutes, just to soften. Do not remove from the stock pot.

Add in your ground beef and cook until there is no more pink. Turn the heat down to medium, throw in the garlic, pour in the passata and simmer for 5 mins. Add your Parmesan cheese rind(s) and submerge it in the sauce a little bit.

Pour in the tomatoes and break them up a bit with the spoon. As Zia Raffy says, "You can't make tomato sauce unless it's with a wooden spoon." Toss in everything else now: spices, mushrooms, salt and pepper. Simmer that bad boy on LOW with the lid on for 60-90 minutes. I like to stir it every 15 minutes or so to move around the veggies and cheese rind. I also tend to forget about it on the stove and can end up simmering it for over 3 hours because, well, kids...and Instagram. Oops.

When the sauce is ready to your liking, take out the bay leaves, cheese rind (you can eat it, live a little) and celery. Finito!