The Bolognese Mission

I have given myself a mission, to perfect the bolognese sauce!

This may seem ridiculous, as most people probably think the humble bolognese is the easiest sauce of them all. But I am not content with mine, it just doesn't seem to have the flavour and perfect balance of spices I would like. Well it just doesn't taste as good as my Nonna's!

So,this was one I whipped up recently, that was pretty good and probably the best I had made in sometime...but please post your Bolognese tips and techniques!

My process is simple...the most important ingredient to making a delicious bolognese is time. Not the herb, but the ticking variety. The longer you can let the sauce simmer and rest the better its going to taste! This one I cooked on a Sunday arvo...let it simmer into the night, then let it cool and rest over night. It's getting chilly now so you can get away with it.

Ok, back to the sauce, my cooking process is; sweating the onion, garlic, finely diced carrot, celery and the stalks of the basil (this time I added thin slices of red capsicum too) for as long as possible...about 20 minutes. Don't rush to get the meat in there or skimp on the good olive oil. I then added the meat; an equal mix of pork and veal mince (about a kilo and a bit). I find beef mince, is way too heavy and overpowers the sauce. I cooked this through, turning til lightly browned, then added about half a bottle of red wine. I stirred this for a bit, then put the lid on, my logic being this lets the meat absorb the wine and not let the wine evaporate, I could be wrong. Once the wine reduced a bit, I added a big jar of passata and a tin of diced tomatoes. Given it a big stir to mix all together and bring to the boil.

Now, the spices which I am experimenting with to get a unique full flavour. I chucked in about 5 to 6 cloves, 2 dried chillies, a good punch of salt, cracked some pepper and a sprig of cinnamon. Once it came to the boil, I turned it down low, put it on the backburner and went back to the paper. After about an hour, went for a taste, Hannah spotted the cinnamon flavour was well and truly present so we fished out the sprig and left it for few more hours to do its thing.

The next day I heated up a small saucepan of it, and had it with some great new pasta we came across. An organic wholemeal spelt trofie style pasta. I'm not a huge fan of packet wholemeal, but this was really tender and tasty.

My thoughts on the sauce. It was very tasty, I liked the subtle cinnamon and clove flavour. It had a vibe of my Nonna's sauce but not as red and with more vegies. For this first phase of the mission, it was a good step forward, but I have a long way to go. Next time, I'm gonna try experimenting with some nutmeg and oregano and majoram. Perhaps adding more tomotoes or some paste and a wee bit more chilli. Eventually I will like to go old school and not use mince, but get some veal shoulder and stew that til it falls apart into bite size pieces.

The saga continues...