Welcome friends today we are walking into the murky world of Italian cooking.
One of the things I've learned over the years of creating video content about
recipes, and working with dozens of Italian chefs, is that there's nothing
more divisive than an Italian recipe! Which I kind of think is a good thing.
It means that people are passionate about their food, they're passionate
about what they're making. What it means on the other side is that any time you
try to present a recipe, you cannot call it authentic or traditional because
people are just gonna rip you to shreds...
But we're still gonna give it a shot, so this is a bolognese recipe that I have
put together after talking to dozens of Italian chefs, and home cooks, and
cookbook authors, and recipe developers. There is no consensus whatsoever
on the exact ingredient list for this recipe. Everybody has their own take on
it. Everybody believes that their take is the only way. So in a heavy cast-iron pot,
I've got it on some heat, put some olive oil on the bottom. And the one thing
there is a consensus on as you start it with a sofrito. Sofrito is
essentially a mirepoix in French, and that's onion, carrot and celery.
These are diced really finely, you want a really small dice almost a mince. And if
your knife skills aren't that great, go ahead and use the food processor, put
them in and and get it small that way. You want these small. We're gonna put
this in here on medium low heat and you want to sweat it down. You don't want to
add any colour to it you don't want to add any flavour through colour you just
want to sweat them out and meld all of those flavours together. Next up is what
meat do you use? Opinions here differed and everyone was again adamant that
their way was correct. Most people agree
that beef is part of the mix. Minced beef, ground beef whatever you want to call it.
Some people said 50/50 beef and pork, the pork bringing a nice luscious
fattiness to the dish. Some people beef pork and ground
pancetta, and that pancetta again would bring sort of that that oily
unctuousness to the dish.
And the most adamant of all
of the people that I spoke with insisted that only ground skirt steak, or
diaphragm meat could be used in this dish. That that was the most traditional
and I would tend to think that that's probably true. It is a tough piece of
meat, it's something that would be used in a dish like this because it really
wouldn't be used for anything else. So that goes into the pot and we'll fry
that off until it's just no longer pink. Again you don't want to bring any colour
to it just until it's no longer pink. So as the meat is cooking you want to break
it up with a spoon or wooden spoon just to get it into really small little bits.
You don't want big chunks of meat in the sauce. So it looks like we're pretty good.
Next up a little bit of seasoning; so salt and pepper. And now we get to talk
about wine. All of the professionally trained Italian chefs,
I mean chefs that were born, raised, trained in Italy, that I've spoken to...
White wine! White wine and preferably a white wine from the region of Bologna,
Emilia Romano. A couple different wines that they mentioned, I can't get them
here, so I'm just using a very dry, highly acidic white wine. And I know all of the
home cooks I've spoken to: red wine it has to be red wine has to be red wine.
You're using red meat you have to use red wine...
That's just not the case - in this case. You're not looking for the
wine to add a flavour, which is what red wine would do, red wine would add a
flavour. You're looking for the wine to unlock flavours, and so the white wine
doesn't have a whole lot of flavour on its own. What it has is alcohol and
acidity, and so that will unlock all of the other flavours and make the sauce
stand on its own. So this is on medium-high heat and you want to boil
that down to boil off most of the alcohol probably by about 3/4. And while
this is bubbling away I'm gonna put in the next sort of controversial
ingredient and that's nutmeg. I'm gonna grate in a little bit of fresh nutmeg,
this is something that a lot of people say don't do! This is something a lot of
people say you must do! I'm gonna throw it in because I really like nutmeg.
We're looking good now. At this point there's a couple of elephants in
the room. I can hear people already typing and pulling their hair out
leaving comments: WTF! Where's the garlic? Everyone I spoke with who is
professionally trained said no garlic! They also said no leaves. So that means
no oregano, no thyme, no rosemary. Some people said it was okay if you threw a
bay leaf i(n and then you know of course to take the bay leaf out before you
serve it). And other people are adamant no leaves! This recipe stands on pretty much
the meat alone. Next in is tomato paste, and that was one place where everybody
agreed. Tomato paste only. No tomato sauce, no ground tomatoes, no crushed tomatoes.
Tomato paste. They were very adamant that this is a meat sauce with some tomato in it.
Not a tomato sauce with some meat in it. So we'll mix that in and then that
brings us to the next sticking point which is milk...
This is something where it was all over the map, some people said milk in
this sauce is an American thing that came back to Italy. And some Italians
said; no milk is something that their grandmother always put in it. I'm kind of
torn, but I I like living on the edge so I'm gonna put milk in.
The people who said put milk in said full fat milk, so this is 3% milk
homogenized milk, homo milk, depending on where you live or what they
call it there. Putting in about a cup and we turn the heat right down to a low, low
simmer. Stir that in and we let that go at a very low simmer for two to three
hours. Now you want to check it every half hour so give it a stir if it's
getting too dry a little bit of chicken stock or water at that point just to
loosen it up again. But this really is a fairly thick sauce.
So I'll see you when it's done.
Okay so the pasta is pretty much cooked, and in this pot I have the sauce. J: Did you
make this pasta Glen? G: I did not. I'm testing panettone and I gotta tell you
the testing panettone isn't going so well... J: What there's no panettone?
G: No panettone, panettone is coming. J: The disappointment! G:I used a
fresh egg pasta it's, uh Papa Papa Papa deli pop I don't know.
it's wide egg noodles. You are not going to get me to say things in Italian.
J: Not well... G: No so why even? I can't. You're just gonna
make fun of me for saying it wrong. So it's in this pot with the sauce that
we're just gonna cook it the last little bit to cook the sauce in. And if the
sauce is too thick add a little bit of the pasta water which I think I might do.
J: Okay. G: Just a little bit to get the starch.
G: Last little bit. J: I'll get forks. I'm not really sure the best technique for
the large noodles? G: I don't think there is one.
G: so just the sauce. J: Just the sauce okay.
G: You're not gonna like that are you? J: Well more vegetables would be nice.
My bias is more vegetables, so I mean that being said it tastes great! you're
G: I really like it.
It's a stovetop thing but you know what? I got really busy today making
other things, so I put it in the oven at 275 degrees and let it go for about
three hours in the oven. And that was actually easier than having it on the
stovetop and stirring it. J: Interesting. That is easier than staying around
stirring. G: Yeah it's it's a stew you could do it in it you could do it in the oven
just as easily. And I was a little bit worried because there is no garlic, and
there is no, there are no leaves, there's no rosemary, or thyme. J: That's not what I
miss, it's the vegetables. My own personal choice sure, but yeah I don't
miss the garlic like I don't miss all those other additional flavours there's
enough there's enough flavour in there. G: There is a huge amount of flavour in
there isn't there! G: So I really like this Julie seems to
really like it, I was worried because it is mostly a meat sauce with a little bit
of tomato. J: More vegetables! G: Here's the deal so I tried to make it authentic-ish.
Right? And didn't do all of the things that most people do that Italian chefs get
angry at, because that's not authentic. But if you're making it at home and you
want to put garlic in, put garlic in. You want to put oregano, in put oregano. And
you want thyme, you want rosemary. J: In my case
some more vegetables, um few more carrots more celery. G: If I made this again at
home just for us - Marmite. J: He'll put that... G: I'll put that in everything!
Because I really think that it we would bring that umami, that tomato flavour up.
G: So that's it make it authentic, but really... J: Make it your own! G: Make it your own
you are cooking for yourself at home and there there's nobody looking over your
shoulder. The Italian food police are not going to drag you away in handcuffs.
Make it how you want to make it. Thanks for stopping by, see you soon.
Pasta bolognese ragu recipe.