17 Mar Homemade Bolognese
This recipe is one of the first slow cooking revelations I had. I have been eating spaghetti and meat sauce my entire life. It was something I ate as a kid and was one of the first cooking experiences I had: brown meat, add store bought tomato sauce, boil water, cook spaghetti and smother the creation with Parmesan. The attention to ingredients and preparation is a far cry from how I make it today. When my now husband and I started making the original canned sauce plus meat recipe together I thought it seemed crazy to add additional veggies to the sauce. It seemed impure somehow that extra veggies would be added. How would you cook them to taste good with the store bought sauce? The sauce was PERFECT the way it was, right? Since then I’ve gotten comfortable with building flavors and thinking through textures and how to get the final product you desire – this recipe taught me a lot. This recipe was yet another step in that process.
When you think about starting a pasta sauce with carrots and celery, it doesn’t always ring in as a good idea, but that is the beauty in this recipe. It has origins in the basis for original flavor development, where you start with
carrots, celery and onions, otherwise known as a mirepox. You brown the meat to create the fundamental and super tasty maillard reaction and you use homemade stock to round out the flavor. The tomatoes in this sauce aren’t nearly as dominate as they are going to be in a marinara, they are more used for their acidity and balance the flavor more than dominating it.
This recipe takes a while so when you make it, make a lot. It freezes great and makes a great meal for a crowd.
This recipe is adapted from Micheal Pollen’s Bolognese recipe in Cooked. If you don’t know the book, it’s a great one, check it out. I’ve simplified the spices and made it dairy free. It’s one of my favorites; I hope it becomes a way for you and your family to indulge too!
Homemade Bolognese
- Category: Dairy Free, Dinner, Egg Free, Gluten Free, Sugar Free
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 lb Ground Pork
- 1 1/2 lb Ground Beef
- 4 Cloves of Garlic, minced
- 2 tsp. Fresh oregano, minced
- salt, pepper to taste
- 1 c dry red wine
- 1/2 pt mushrooms, finely diced
- 1 large bell pepper. diced
- 4 celery stalks, diced
- 4 medium carrots, diced
- 2 onions, diced
- 2 qt Canned tomatoes
- 2 c Homemade stock
- 1/4 lb Diced Pancetta (optional)
- 1 Cinnamon stick (optional)
Instructions
- Salt the meat and brown it. This is going to take longer than you think, so be patient. Surface area counts, its only going to brown where the meat in touching the pan, so a big fry pan helps.
- Prep the veggies while the meat is browning. Finely dice the veggies. Process the veggies in a food processor if you want them to be basically indistinguishable after cooking. I don’t mind a chunkier sauce, and I prefer the sauce if the veggies aren’t macerated, so I do that, but make it how you will enjoy it.
- After the meat has browned, move it to a bowl and use the pan to cook the carrot, celery, onion, mushrooms and peppers. Salt the veggies and cook them down until they are mostly dehydrated but not quite browned, about 15mins.
- Once the veggies are cooked, add some stock and deglaze the pan (scrape all the browned bits off the bottom so they incorporate into your sauce), then add the meat, tomatoes, wine, oregano, garlic, cinnamon stick and the rest of the stock (you may need to divide the sauce and put half in another pot or pan at this point.)
- Bring sauce to a boil and then reduce heat to a simmer. Allow to simmer for 1-3 hours, watching the consistency and covering the sauce once the sauce has reduced to your liking.
- Remove cinnamon stick before serving on your favorite gluten free noodles. Cover leftover sauce and keep it in the fridge for a week, or in the freezer for 6 months.
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