Simple way to make Bolognese Sauce

Minibiker

Minibiker

Minibiker

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Hi all

My missus has been cooking a lot of fresh meals lately and is wanting to make Bolognese but using her own sauce as she's not a big fan of Onion...

She's made a few Curry's and shepherd's pie lately and they've turnt out really well!

Does anybody know the best Recipe for a Bolognese sauce?

Thanks
 
Whatever recipe you use, get some smoked ham as well. Doesn't have to be anything too fancy, just a halfway decent packet rather than the cheapest possible. Chop it up really finely and throw it in early enough for the flavour to permeate.
 
silverblack said:
This is the recipe i use.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2Ut1H659lU
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Some of the comments on that video are gold.

everytime he mentions stock pot or stock cubes, if you freeze the video there, you can see a small part of his soul escaping his body.
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I made this and it was delicious, I replaced all the other ingredients with 14 more stock pots.
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Next episode, Marco will make a creme brûlée. Quite simple really. Eggs, creme, vanilla and a knorr beef stock cube.
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Coffee Marco?

”Black with two stock pots, please”
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Excellent.
 
This is a total minefield. Therefore I'm going to suggest you simply brown your mince, remove then sweat an onion for 10mins, add a tin of tomatoes and the meat back and simmer for at least 25mins. Done.

Not sure how you can make other dishes but not some form of Bolognese sauce! It's the easiest sauce going!

I'm not even going near the whole Ragu, milk, bacon, pork arguments etc.
 
We make it with mince, onion, garlic, passata or chopped toms, tomatoe purée, red wine, salt, pepper, fresh herbs such as basil, oregano, thyme, sometimes we'll add bacon, chillies, grated carrot.
 
usually use the holy trinity - onion+celery+carrot, also some fish sauce.

Dilema is browning the meet without it shrinking too much , so usually leave the mince in clumps and even just brown it on one side, and then break it down later, once combined with toms.

... and always eat it the next day .. like curries, bolognaise often gets itself together better.
 
Buy the special mince from aldi. Its half beef and half pork. Great for bolognese type dishes. Just drain off a large chunk of the fat before you add veg to the pan. Pork mince is realy fatty.
 
My wife isn't great with onion, but enjoys the taste.

What we tend to do if make the sauce (brown mince, add tinned tomatoes, herbs etc), then as it's simmering we stick in a whole onion to flavour and then remove it prior to eating (well i usually eat it as i like onions :p)
 
You can't taste the onion in the finished product so I don't get the issue?

Really finally dice your onion, then add beef until it's browned off. Then add chopped tomatoes, tom puree, bit of sugar, plenty of seasoning, bay leaf if you have one. And that's pretty much it from memory. Let it simmer for 45 mins or something like that and it's delicious!
 
Jasoncmor said:
We make it with mince, onion, garlic, passata or chopped toms, tomatoe purée, red wine, salt, pepper, fresh herbs such as basil, oregano, thyme.
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And that is my approach too, with the addition of mushrooms and an occasional bay leaf.

The onion really adds to the dish, dice it down fine and you won't see it or taste it.
 
Marvt74 said:
My wife isn't great with onion, but enjoys the taste.

What we tend to do if make the sauce (brown mince, add tinned tomatoes, herbs etc), then as it's simmering we stick in a whole onion to flavour and then remove it prior to eating (well i usually eat it as i like onions :p)
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There are methods that allow you to chop it without crying, my way works by not being too attached to the onions :p:p:p
 
There's a guy on youtube called Adam Ragusea who does a great, simply bolognese that I use from time to time - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5WR-K0zJYs

It's by no means an authentic, Italian style bolognese and whilst it's nice for what it is, I made several changes when I cooked it a second time... but it's a great starting point and the way he cooks the meat is great. I used to brown my mince in a screaming hot pan and in small batches (as recommend by Heston Blumenthal) and whilst I think the results are better, the time and effort saved by Ragusea's method is worth the compromise when you don't want to spend hours in the doing prep work in kitchen. Just make sure that the mince you use isn't too fatty.

The recipe in question does take a couple of hours to cook but it prep time is minimal and it can be left to bubble away if you have the right pan at the right temperature. If you have a food processor, all you need to do is top, tail and peel the onions and carrots. There's no other chopping involved in the recipe. As the onions are chopped pretty small and as they're cooked for a few hours, they kind of melt into the sauce, so perhaps your wife might not mind them if she's anything like Marvt74's missus.

I'd recommend adding celery and mushrooms, going a bit easier on the herbs and using a bit less tomato puree as the recipe is very tomato rich. I also use frozen garlic instead of powdered as, after a few hours of cooking, the difference between frozen garlic and fresh garlic is minimal at best.
 
I recently went on a cooking holiday in Italy and this is the ragout recipe we cooked in one of the lessons, full prep and cooking time is 2 to 3 hours so it's not quick and is designed to feed 8 so adjust if you want to make less.

250 grams beef mince
250 grams of veal mince (Waitrose seems about the only supermarket where you can get this)
100 grams of bacon or ham (unsmoked)
1 carrot
1 stick of celery
1 onion
Large glass of red wine
2 tins of plum tomatoes
300ml of stock
10 sprigs of fresh parsley
2 sprigs of fresh thyme
1 bayleaf

Finely chop the carrot, celery and onion and gently fry in extra virgin olive oil (it's worth spending extra on the oil, the standard Bertolli/Felippo Berio ones are pretty rubbish as I discovered).
Add the meat and fry until properly browned then add the red wine and simmer
Add a small pinch of salt and the tomatoes (squish before adding)
Create a bouquet garnii with the parsley and thyme and add this with the bay leaf
Add the stock and stir everything together.
Gently simmer for at least an hour, preferably 2, partially covered. Stir regularly to ensure the bottom does not start to burn.
Taste towards the end of cooking and add a little more salt if necessary.

The recipe produces an incredibly rich sauce and I've made it for my family since my holiday to much acclaim I'm pleased to say!
 
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I brown the mince in the oven, saw someone doing that once and it saves so much time, plus I really can't stand the smell of cooking mince beef for some reason. Just cover the tray with foil at first, then finish off with it uncovered. I find by the time this is done (~30 minutes, depending how much you're cooking) that is enough time to be prepping the rest of the ingredients. I would also use a 1 litre jar of passata and a little water to get all that free sauce out of the bottle, plus a small tin or normal tube of tomato puree. Fresh herbs are a must but also with some good dried oregano. Your bog standard beef oxo cubes just seem to give the best flavour, to my tastebuds anyway.

Actually, thinking about it, I tend to do bulk cooking with bolognese and often use pork mince to make the dish a little lighter in flavour, plus it's quite a bit cheaper where I live. Mine is also a bit more ragu than bolognese but ultimately just have to do your own thing with cooking.

We have a bay tree in our garden as well so always plenty of that goes in.

Usually I make 20 large takeaway trays worth (one and a half is enough for two adults and two children), so around 12-13 meals.
 
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