- [Host] This episode of "Basics with Babish"
is sponsored by Bright Cellars, a monthly wine club
that matches you with fine wine you'll love
and delivers it right to your door.
Bright Cellars is offering you
50% off your first six-bottle box,
so follow the link in the video description
to take the seven-question Taste Pallet Quiz
and get started.
I'm actually glad I have a little extra wine on hand,
because I'll need it to prepare and enjoy
alongside today's topic, bolognese sauce.
Let's get down to basics.
(happy, upbeat music)
(gentle music)
All right, so this might not be
the most basic way to start things off,
but great recipes often begin with great chicken stock,
and in a recipe like bolognese,
where every single ingredient matters,
if you have the time, energy, and emotional latitude,
it behooves you to make your own chicken stock.
My favorite way as of late is to roast
a whole mess of chicken wings, about three pounds,
in a 400-degree Fahrenheit oven until deeply browned.
Combine in a pot with celery, carrots, onion,
a turnip or two, maybe a knob of ginger,
a whole halved head of garlic,
and whatever other stuff you like,
like fennel fronds and parsnips and black peppercorns.
Bring it just shy of a simmer, about 205 degrees Fahrenheit,
and let it go for at least four hours, and ideally up to 24.
You're only gonna use about a quart of this stuff
in your bolognese recipe,
but the rest of it is liquid gold.
Simply portion, freeze, and profit.
Once you have this very optional
but very rewarding step out of the way,
it's time to get into making bolognese in earnest.
First up, as many great recipes do,
this one begins with mirepoix,
or as the Italians call it, sofrito,
that is, one large finely minced yellow onion,
two medium carrots peeled and finely chopped,
and three ribs of celery similarly finely chopped.
Set that aside because now it's time
to contend with the meats.
Traditional bolognese calls for beef and pork,
a pound of which of each
we're going to brown off in some olive oil.
But to increase the meaty, savory mineral notes,
I like to take a page out of J. Kenji López-Alt's book
and also add a pound of ground lamb.
A trio that we're going to brown over medium heat
until browned, about three to five minutes,
before removing by virtue of a slotted spoon,
because, as you might imagine,
we want to reserve all this beautiful rendered fat
so we can cook our vegetables in it.
Once our meat is out the way, it's time to add our onions
and sauté for two to three minutes
until beginning to turn translucent around the edges
and getting nice and soft.
But first we're gonna scoop out said onions because,
even though we're the host of our own cooking show,
we totally forgot a step.
Half a pound of thick-cut pancetta,
which we're first going to render the fat out of
and get nice and crispy and browned.
But then we're gonna notice
that our beautiful fond on the bottom of the pot
is starting to burn, so we're gonna remove the pork.
Whose idea was it to give me a cooking show?
Mine? That sounds about right.
Anyway, back to square one,
we're gonna continue sautéing our onions
along with our carrot and celery
while our pancetta browns up and renders out its fat
in a separate sauté pan.
Once the vegetables are soft and the pancetta is crisp,
we're gonna dump it straight in, fat and all,
as this is going to bring
a lot of great flavor to the party.
Next up, our tomato element,
which is just a quarter cup of tomato paste.
Most Americans think that bolognese is a tomato sauce,
which it is not.
While tomato paste brings a lot of tomato flavor,
it's primarily a meat, wine, and stock sauce,
which, after the tomato paste
has had about two minutes to caramelize,
we're gonna add to the hot tub.
One cup of dry white wine, like Sauvignon Blanc,
scraping up all the good stuff off the bottom of the pot.
Then we're gonna let it simmer for about five minutes,
or until the wine is almost fully evaporated
and it smells like God's morning breath.
Add back our browned meats, give it a stir
just so everybody gets to know everybody,
and then it's time to start ladling in
our ideally homemade, but totally fine if store bought,
chicken stock, about 32 ounces worth,
but your mileage may vary,
we want just enough that everybody is submerged.
Then we're topping that up with one cup of whole milk,
a bay leaf or two, a couple Parmesan cheese rinds
if you have them lying around the house,
and the most traditional ingredient,
a generous grating of freshly grated nutmeg.
And then you can simmer it on the stovetop,
but I like to put it in a 300-degree Fahrenheit oven
for three to four hours,
plenty of time to make the all-important fresh pasta.
Bolognese is most commonly served
with an almost-too-wide-for-your-mouth pappardelle,
so that's what we're gonna make
out of an indiscriminate mountain of all-purpose flour.
Dig a well in the center, crack in four eggs,
give it a little sprinkle of kosher salt,
and start beating with a fork into a slurry,
grabbing handfuls from the foothills of Mount Flour
and tossing them into the center
as you beat it with the fork.
The slurry growing ever thicker
until you can beat it no more,
and you must start gently coaxing it together
with a bench scraper like this one,
and then your hands into a very wet, very soft ball of dough
which we must begin to knead for maybe five to seven minutes
until it becomes soft and cohesive and bouncy,
and gently springs back when poked with a finger.
Then we're wrapping it in plastic wrap
and letting it rest at room temperature for about 30 minutes
before beginning to roll out.
Come rolling time, we're going to unwrap our dough
and cut it into four pieces,
which we're gonna keep wrapped in the plastic wrap
so they do not dry out,
while we bust out our pasta cheat machine, the stand mixer.
And to help better develop our dough's gluten development,
we're going to laminate it, that is,
roll it out a little bit by hand,
pass it through our roller on its widest setting,
fold it into thirds like a pamphlet,
roll it out a little bit again, and pass it back through.
Depending on how much you hand kneaded it,
you might want to repeat this process up to three times
before starting to pass it through your pasta roller
one notch at a time thinner and thinner,
until you have a nice, long, thin sheet of pasta.
Once you get to about notch number four,
you might need to cut your sheet in half
so you can get it all the way down to zero
or its thinnest possible setting, at which point
we'll begin cutting our pasta into pappardelle.
The idea here is that you wanna fold the pasta
onto itself accordion style
without any of the folds overlapping,
so they don't crease as much when cut
and we don't end up with kinky pasta.
Then we are simply slicing lengthwise
into about half-inch wide strips,
and making sure that each strip
is generously coated in flour
before twisting into nests
and placing on a rimmed baking sheet
that has been well dusted with flour.
Then all there is left to do
is rinse and repeat with the remaining pasta,
a process which, like chicken stock,
is labor intensive, but worth the effort.
Once all the pasta is rolled,
it's time to begin final assembly.
Our sauce is out the oven and looking pretty crazy,
but it's gonna be really awesome.
First, we're gonna skim off as much of the fat as we can,
remove the bay leaf, and start tasting for seasoning.
This thing is going to need generous doses of the following:
freshly grated Parmesan cheese,
heaping pinches of kosher salt,
and plenty o' twists of freshly ground black pepper.
And for a little optional added richness,
about half a cup of heavy cream.
Stir it until everybody's combined
and emulsified and rich and creamy and awesome.
One last taste to make sure that it's seasoned properly,
and because your instinct might be
to just eat this with a spoon,
before it's time to start assembling our pasta.
As you may know, I'm an advocate
for finishing cooking pasta in the sauce.
So even though our fresh pasta
only needs about 60 seconds of cook time,
we're gonna cook it for about 45 seconds, pull it out,
and drop it into an awaiting sauté pan full of our sauce,
along with about a quarter cup of pasta cooking water,
which we're gonna toss together over medium-low heat
until some of the sauce is absorbed,
the sauce is emulsified, and the pasta is fully cooked.
Then we're optionally twisting using a carving fork
into a nest into our intended bowl,
which, this pappardelle is so wide
that that didn't really actually work,
so maybe just dump some into a bowl.
Top with a little bit of extra sauce
and an unreasonable amount
of freshly grated Parmesan cheese.
And there you have it, what I'm gonna go out on a limb
and say, publicly on the internet,
is a very legitimate bolognese sauce.
I'm looking forward to the panel of four Italian experts
telling me exactly why I'm wrong.
But one thing that they cannot tell me
is that this isn't amazing.
It is meaty, it is saucy, it is unctuous,
and it's entirely made from scratch.
And it's all the better being made with and enjoyed
alongside some wine from today's sponsor, Bright Cellars,
a service that selects wine just for you
from all around the world
and delivers it right to your door.
This service is only for adults 21 and older.
The folks at Bright Cellars take pride
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And you don't even have to leave the house,
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Bright Cellars does it all for you.
All you have to do is enjoy.
With today's bolognese,
I am enjoying this Cabernet Sauvignon from Obscura.
It's spicy, fruit forward boldness
makes it a perfect pairing for such a rich, unctuous dish.
Bright Cellars is offering you
50% off your first six-bottle box,
so be sure to follow the link in the video description below
to take the Taste Palette Quiz and get started.
(gentle music)