tagliatelle al ragù bolognese
tagliatelle with bolognese ragù
It's hard to know where to begin. Alongside Carbonara, 'Bolognese' sauce gets a great deal of air time in online food forums, and it's very unlikely that any of you will have never tried to cook a variation of this recipe. And like Carbonara, Bolognese Ragù owes its phenomenal fame to the post-war explosion of interest in Italian food in the USA and in Britain.
Like Carbonara, this recipe has picked up some unfortunate and distinctly un-Italian traditions, crimes and misdemeanours. Let's take them in one at a time.
1) "Spaghetti Bolognese" doesn't exist as a traditional recipe in Italy, let alone in the ragù's hometown of Bologna. In Bologna, the science of pairing the perfect pasta to any given sauce has evolved to bring us Ragù Bolognese + Tagliatelle. The wider, flat ribbons of pasta hold meat sauces far better than spaghetti, and the dish actually 'eats' in a lighter way than with spaghetti. In Tuscany, Papardelle, Reginelle and even Pici are also popular with ragùs, for the same reason. My theory for the emergence of 'Spaghetti Bolognese' over 'Tagliatelle Bolognese' from the 1950s onwards is down to how much easier I think it was to ship, transport and store spaghetti over tagliatelle. Many of the dry varieties of Tagliatelle also contained egg, too, making them more expensive to produce than the eggless spaghetti.
2) One of the most common un-Italian ways of plating a meat sauce is to dollop a helping of the sauce on top of pure, 'naked' pasta. I think this alaso has a historicak origin in the 1950s, when Italian food was trying to be desperately 'chef-ified' to compete with French restaurant cuisine. To the eye used to eating French dishes, a dollop of suace on top of naked pasta seemed infinitely more appealing than a mass of pre-mixed sauce and pasta. Astonishingly, and fascinatingly, it's a view that still continues in anglo-saxon cooking culture today.
Other fans of The Dollop will try and justify it with a wishy wash, all-inclusive 'everyone can mix it how they like' on their own plates. And practically all will be non-Italians. To Italians, however, a plate of pasta presented like this at the table just looks unfinished, amateur and 100% foreign.
In Italy ALL ragù gets combined with pasta before it's plated. Why? Because doing that is the final stage of cooking and flavouring the pasta. With tomato-based sauces, including ragùs, there's no need to cook the pasta to the 'al dente' stage and then finish off its cooking in the sauce (see the MANTECATURA page in the Technique Section) - but these dishes DO need a minute or so of tossing and combining pasta and sauce in the pan before plating.
3) The terms 'spag bol' , 'sketti' and 'comfort food' make me cringe. It's not big and it's not clever. Just don't. MY VERSION The recipe I've included here is definitely a pre-2023 take on 'classic' bolognese. You can read more about the changes introduced in the classic recipe in the introduction to the TOMATO chapter. The key differences with other ragùs is the combination of different types of meats, no spices or garlic and the inclusion of pancetta.
WHAT YOU'LL NEED TO DO
(scroll down for the full method)
chop the vegetables
prepare the other ingredients
fry the soffritto
fry the pancetta
fry the meat
add meat to sauce, simmer
allow time to pass
add milk and butter
allow the ragù to rest
boil the pasta
combine sauce and pasta
tagliatelle with bolognese ragù
INGREDIENTS
FOR SIX PEOPLE
200g 5% fat beef mince
200g 5% fat pork mince
150g finely chopped pancetta
1 stick celery (approx 60g)
1 small carrot (approx 60g)
1 small onion (approx 60g)
400g tomato polpa
milk
butter
black pepper
white wine
bay leaves
PASTA
600g dry or fresh tagliatelle
MANTECATURA (?)
none
METHOD
Disclaimer - the recipe video I've included on this page is astually for my Red Pork and Beef ragù, which included garlic and nutmeg. Nutmeg is a flavour that wasn't officially sanctioned before 2023, and garlic continues to be outlawed. And that's why it's called a Red Pork and Beef Ragù, rather than 'Bolognese' ragù.
Chop the onion, celery and carrots reasonably finely - I normally dice everything by hand to about 5mm cubed size or thereabouts. This is what you'll see referred to as the 'soffritto', which is just a mix of those vegetables, lightly fried in EVO for around 15 mins, on a low heat. Don't colour or burn the vegetables at all.
While the soffritto is going I normally dry fry the pancetta, beef and pork, with a splash of EVO, in a separate pan. A separate pan because once it's all begun to change colour I turn the heat up briefly, add a splash of wine, and then continue cooking until it evaporates, or until you can't smell it strongly anymore. Then I add the meat to the vegetables, stir and cook together for a few minutes, then add the polpa, and bring back to a simmer. After 10 minutes or so of simmering, check for seasoning and add salt / ground black pepper.
Let the ragù continue to cook gently, maybe adding some extra water if it starts to dry up too much, for anything from 80-180 mins. You may have heard of some people cooking ragùs for ridiculously long periods of time like 6-8 hours.... but I'm yet to be convinced that you need more than 1.5 - 3 hrs to create a perfectly acceptable sauce. When the flavours of the ragù are starting to taste good for you, boil and cook the pasta.
When the pasta goes in, amd sometimes quite a while before that, I normally turn the heat off the sauce and let it rest. It's also the moment I add a tablespoon or two (or to taste) of butter and a splash of milk - it helps to (a) temper the acidity and sharpness of the tomatoes and (b) create a more indulgent sauce. Place four-six large serving spoons of ragù in a warmed pasta pan and then add the boiled pasta directly to that, with possibly a ladle of cooking water too, before combining for a maximum of a minute or so. Serve immediately with freshly grated parmesan and more ground black pepper.
NUTRITION per serving
KCAL: 419
Fat (g): 17.2
Sat Fat (g): 6.6
Carb (g): 29.0
Sug (g): 4.6
Fibre(g): 2.6
Prot (g): 28.3
Salt (g): 2.21
