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Marcella Hazan's Bolognese

on italian, beef, pasta

Ingredients:

  • 1 Tablespoon olive oil
  • 3 Tablespoons of butter plus 1 Tablespoon for tossing the pasta
  • ½ Cup chopped onion
  • 2/3 Cup. chopped celery (do NOT leave this out, even if you dislike celery)
  • 2/3 Cup chopped carrots
  • ¾ pound ground beef chuck (or you can use 1 part pork to 2 parts beef)
  • 1 Cup whole milk
  • 1/8 teaspoon grated nutmeg
  • 1 Cup dry white wine
  • 1 ½ Cup canned Italian plum tomatoes, cut in with their juice
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • freshly graded parmigiano-reggiano cheese
  • Pasta of choice: tagliatelle, but works equally well with rigatoni or fusilli

Instructions:

  1. Put oil and butter in a pot with chopped onion. Turn heat on to medium. Cook and stir onion until translucent. Add chopped celery and carrot. Cook for 2 minutes more, stirring the vegetables to coat them well.

  2. Add ground beef, a large pinch of salt, and a few grindings of pepper. Break up the meat and stir well, cooking until the beef has lost its raw, red color.

  3. Add the milk and let simmer gently, stirring frequently, until it has bubbled away completely. This can take a while. Add the 1/8 tsp of grated nutmeg and stir.

  4. Add the wine and let simmer until it has evaporated. This can take a while. Add tomatoes and stir thoroughly to coat all ingredients. When the tomatoes begin to bubble, turn heat down so that the sauce cooks at the laziest simmer with ocassional bubbles breaking. Cook uncovered for 3 hours or more, stirring from time to time. If the sauce begins to dry out and the fat separates from the meat, add ½ C of water to keep it from sticking to the pot. At the end, however, no water should remain and the fat must be separate from the sauce. Taste and correct for salt.

  5. To serve: toss with cooked drained pasta, adding the final tablespoon of butter. Serve with the parmesan on the side. Hazan uses 1 ¼ lb of fresh pasta. I just cook what I think is enough for the meal and let people mix their own.

If you’re going to freeze the sauce, don’t toss it with pasta. When you do serve it, reheat it and simmer for 15 minutes before adding pasta.