Ragù Bolognese

Prior to this recipe, I'd never made anything with veal before. It kinda squicks me out, but I was cooking for my parents and my mom requested veal, so I bit the bullet and decided not to put up a fight. This was the sauce I used to accompany my homemade pasta and it was really incredible. Classic bolognese is made with pancetta and a mixture of ground beef and ground veal, but guess what? It's hard finding pancetta in a small town in Virginia and I had a pound and a half of ground veal in the fridge ready to use (and no ground beef). For all that, I don't think my sauce suffered one bit.

Okay, so it may not look gorgeous, but it tasted like heaven. Something about slow-cooking it made all of the ingredients fuse together to create a rich, meaty sauce that really calls into question the whole notion of why people go completely vegetarian. This was really excellent with pasta, but I also thought it made an excellent Sloppy Joe filling on a Kaiser roll the day after too.

This is the sauce to make when you've got some time on your hands. You have to let the sauce cook for a good three hours, so it's time you can spend doing other stuff (like making pasta, if you're a masochist like me!) and you only need to check in on the sauce occasionally to stir it around. I wouldn't skimp on the amount of time you cook the sauce, unless you're using a pressure cooker. The sauce is pretty thin for the first couple hours and it really needs time to cook down. That's how it gets to be so rich and flavorful.

I started by chopping up three onions, four celery stalks, and four carrots.

I then heated up a large pot over medium high heat, added olive oil to the pot, and then loaded the pot with the veggies. After 10 minutes or so, when the vegetables were soft, I added diced bacon and cooked that for a few minutes, letting some of the fat render before adding in my veal. I stirred that around, until the veal was cooked through (this took maybe 10-15 minutes?).

When the meat was browned I poured in a cup of dry red wine (Cabernet, if anyone's asking) and let the wine boil for about a minute. Then, I stirred in a lot of tomato paste and poured in six cups of beef broth. To this, I added about two teaspoons black pepper and one teaspoon of salt. I brought the sauce to a boil and then turned the heat down to medium/medium-low. I left it mostly alone for the next hour and a half to cook down, stirring only occasionally.

After my timer went off, I came back to the sauce with two cups of whole milk I'd brought to a simmer in a small pan. I poured the warm milk into the sauce and stirred it around. I set the lid of the pot a little cockeyed on the pot, so that some of the steam could escape and then I let it cook for another 30 minutes. My sauce wasn't as thick as I wanted it, so I jacked up the heat to high and uncovered the pot, letting it boil for a couple minutes before bringing the heat down to medium again and cooking if for another 20-30 minutes.

Pictures don't really do it justice. I was probably a little heavy-handed when it came to portioning the Bolognese onto the pasta, but I don't think anybody minded. They just used some soft French bread to sop up the leftover sauce, which is how I came up with the idea to use the leftover sauce for Sloppy Joe-style sandwiches for lunch the next day. I think it would also be good served over a baked potato too, with a little cheddar sprinkled on top.

It's making me hungry just to look at these photos again, because I can remember how bone-deep satisfying this sauce was. It's much more suited to the fall and winter seasons, but if you don't mind standing over the stove as this summer draws to a close, why not make this?


Ragù Bolognese
(makes enough for 6-8 people)
adapted from Bon Appetit

Finely chop 3 onions (3 cups' worth), 4 celery stalks with their leaves (about 2 cups), and 4 carrots (about 1 1/2 cups). In a large pot, heat 3-4 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil over medium high heat. Add onions, celery, and carrots. Stir and let cook for 8-10 minutes, until vegetables are softened and onions are mostly translucent. Finely chop 6 ounces of bacon and add to the pot. Let bacon cook for 3-5 minutes, until fat begins to render. Add 1 1/2 pounds ground veal. Brown the veal, making sure to break up the meat with a spoon to avoid large chunks (this takes 10-15 minutes). Add one cup dry red wine and let it boil for a minute or so. Add 6 tbsp tomato paste and stir into mixture. Pour 6 cups of beef broth into the pot and stir. Add salt and pepper, to taste. Bring the sauce to a boil for two minutes and then lower heat to medium/medium-low. Let the sauce cook for 1 1/2 hours uncovered, stirring occasionally.

In a small pot, simmer two cups whole milk. Carefully pour the warm milk into the sauce, stirring to incorporate. Crank up the heat on the stove to medium-high, bringing the sauce to a boil. Let the sauce boil for 1-2 minutes, then turn the heat down to medium. Let the sauce cook, partially covered, for another 40-45 minutes. If the sauce is too thin, uncover the pot and turn up the heat a bit, letting the sauce cook down. If, for some reason, your sauce is too thick, add more warm milk in by the 1/4 cup, stirring in until you reach your desired consistency.

Serve over pasta (or baked potato, or bread). The sauce make excellent leftovers.

Ingredient List
3 onions
4 celery stalks
4 carrots
6 oz bacon
1 1/2 pounds veal
1 cup dry red wine
6 tbsp tomato paste
6 cups (1 1/2 quarts) beef broth
2 cups whole milk
salt and pepper