So tonight is bolognese night. I'm making cannelloni bolognese so decided to take a few pics of how I do this and share the recipe with you. The individual steps to this are really important and there is science and reason to a lot of it. It's worth the effort if you want to taste a very traditional bolognese, taught to me by a proper Italian mama.
Ingredients:
Beef mince (not lean, please - the fat will cook out - usually there is a combination of pork and beef mince but I forgot to defrost the pork and *gasp* there's no bacon)
Red Onion
Carrots X 3
Green Pepper
Garlic
Tinned tomatoes (chopped or whole)
Tomato paste
Tomato sauce
Worcestershire sauce
Fish sauce
White wine
Red wine
Milk
Basil
Dried bay leaves X 2
Nutmeg
Dried origanum
Salt
Pepper
Method:
Fry the mince in batches so that there is only one layer of mince in the pan at the time. Do this in a dry pan as there is enough fat in the mince that will cook out. You need to get the pan smoking hot first and season each batch liberally with salt.
Why do we do this? To initiate the Maillard reaction in the meat, which is what turns meat brown. Most people cook mince in one big batch without enough heat in the pan, which only serves to steam the mince and never develops any sort of flavour. It lands up being a bland protein. When you crowd the pan, it cannot get hot enough, layers steam on top of each other instead of frying and there is not enough room for the water in the mince to cook out. This creates crap mince with no flavour. Remember, season with salt in the pan and cook in single batches at a very high temperature. Here's what proper fried mince looks like:
Now in a low heat pan, sautee your onion until it turns translucent, then add your carrots, peppers, and 4 cloves of chopped garlic. Fry for 5 minutes.
Why do we do this? This is a type of sofrito (which is considered the holy trinity of cooking - like a mirepoix) These are your fragrant vegetables and they add significant flavour to the dish. They are a vital combination of ingredients and no bolognese would be seen dead without it. You can substitute the pepper for celery for a more traditional mirepoix but I prefer the pepper. This combination releases what are called volatile molecules, which are what our olfactory bulb picks up on when we eat. And our olfactory bulb is responsible for the majority of flavour as we know it. It is where we identify flavours (note, flavour is different to taste) and recall them. Oh and season lightly at this point. Here's the pretty colours of a sofrito:
Next add the tin of tomato paste and fry this with sofrito at a higher temperature for another 5 minutes.
Why do we do this? Tomato paste is a concentrated, raw tomato. It has an astringency to it that needs to be cooked out. As we cook each step individually, we create new flavour molecules, which adds depth to the flavour profile of the overall dish.
Now drain your tinned tomatoes and save the juices. For now all you want is to add the actual tomatoes themselves with no liquids and crank the temperature up to full blast. Fry this for another 10 minutes.
Why do we do this? Tomatoes contain a lot of sugar and to avoid adding more sugar to this dish (we have tomato sauce to come) we try to extract the sugar flavour from the tomato. I let mine catch slightly on the bottom of the pan which adds caramelisation flavours too, but careful with this as it can go from caramelised to burnt very quickly. What you want to do is again concentrate the flavours, so what this also does is remove the water from the tomatoes and leaves you with a concentrated tomato flavour. A bolognese is after all, a tomato and meat sauce. So cook this mixture until it is very thick and almost dry, and develops massive flavour compounds. Note that whole tomatoes break down very easily here. Oh, and season lightly at this point.
Now add some of your liquids while the heat is still right up - the tomato juice that you kept, a few glugs of tomato sauce, worcestershire sauce (be liberal - it's good stuff), fish sauce (smells horrible but is brilliant as an ingredient - about 5 glugs), a splash of white wine (not too much here), the two bay leaves, a drop of liquid smoke works well at this point if you have, some dried origanum and your grated nutmeg. Cook this for another 5 minutes on high until it begins to tighten up again (lose water).
Why do we do this? For flavour. All of these are your flavourings that you're adding to your base flavours. They are there to either emphasise other flavours (like the worcerstershire sauce and fish sauce which help to bring out the meaty flavours of the sauce) or to introduce complementing flavours (like the origanum and white wine). The wine also adds a little more acidity to the dish, but we balance this with the sweet and salty flavours of the other ingredients. You also cook this on high to create a roasted flavour in this sauce, as you can see happening in the pic:
Now drop the heat to the lowest possible setting and add about a half a cup of milk. It might split a little, but this is fine, it will come together all on its own as you continue to cook. Also add a half a glass of red wine here and the beef mince that you cooked earlier.
Why do we do this? For the life of me I can't remember but the Italian woman in Rome told me to add milk, and all other traditional recipes call for it. I know it will add a richness to the final product which I suppose could be the reason. Or it could be the lactose sugars in milk, but I'm not going to speculate further. Oh and I add the red wine here because I like the flavour it adds. Here, like this:
Now taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper (only add pepper at this point as it burns if you add it earlier) and cover with a lid and cook for at least one hour, preferably as long as you can, up to six hours.
Why do we do this? To develop the flavours and to soften the mince, which at the high temperatures we cook it at, goes a little crisp. That's not a good texture for bolognese, so you have to cook it like a stew now. This is it just after the initial stir:
And this is what it looks like after cooking for quite a while:
And remember to add some fresh basil just before serving.
Hope this helps those of you not sure how to tackle a traditional bolognese sauce. Yes, the bottled sauces are easier and less time consuming but will never, ever approach the flavour that you get from this. Not in a million years. I also hope that it helps you to understand some of the science of bolognese making and food in general.
I'm turning this into a cannelloni with a sherry and mushroom sauce, so that recipe will follow a little later...
Ingredients:
Beef mince (not lean, please - the fat will cook out - usually there is a combination of pork and beef mince but I forgot to defrost the pork and *gasp* there's no bacon)
Red Onion
Carrots X 3
Green Pepper
Garlic
Tinned tomatoes (chopped or whole)
Tomato paste
Tomato sauce
Worcestershire sauce
Fish sauce
White wine
Red wine
Milk
Basil
Dried bay leaves X 2
Nutmeg
Dried origanum
Salt
Pepper
Method:
Fry the mince in batches so that there is only one layer of mince in the pan at the time. Do this in a dry pan as there is enough fat in the mince that will cook out. You need to get the pan smoking hot first and season each batch liberally with salt.
Why do we do this? To initiate the Maillard reaction in the meat, which is what turns meat brown. Most people cook mince in one big batch without enough heat in the pan, which only serves to steam the mince and never develops any sort of flavour. It lands up being a bland protein. When you crowd the pan, it cannot get hot enough, layers steam on top of each other instead of frying and there is not enough room for the water in the mince to cook out. This creates crap mince with no flavour. Remember, season with salt in the pan and cook in single batches at a very high temperature. Here's what proper fried mince looks like:
Now in a low heat pan, sautee your onion until it turns translucent, then add your carrots, peppers, and 4 cloves of chopped garlic. Fry for 5 minutes.
Why do we do this? This is a type of sofrito (which is considered the holy trinity of cooking - like a mirepoix) These are your fragrant vegetables and they add significant flavour to the dish. They are a vital combination of ingredients and no bolognese would be seen dead without it. You can substitute the pepper for celery for a more traditional mirepoix but I prefer the pepper. This combination releases what are called volatile molecules, which are what our olfactory bulb picks up on when we eat. And our olfactory bulb is responsible for the majority of flavour as we know it. It is where we identify flavours (note, flavour is different to taste) and recall them. Oh and season lightly at this point. Here's the pretty colours of a sofrito:
Next add the tin of tomato paste and fry this with sofrito at a higher temperature for another 5 minutes.
Why do we do this? Tomato paste is a concentrated, raw tomato. It has an astringency to it that needs to be cooked out. As we cook each step individually, we create new flavour molecules, which adds depth to the flavour profile of the overall dish.
Now drain your tinned tomatoes and save the juices. For now all you want is to add the actual tomatoes themselves with no liquids and crank the temperature up to full blast. Fry this for another 10 minutes.
Why do we do this? Tomatoes contain a lot of sugar and to avoid adding more sugar to this dish (we have tomato sauce to come) we try to extract the sugar flavour from the tomato. I let mine catch slightly on the bottom of the pan which adds caramelisation flavours too, but careful with this as it can go from caramelised to burnt very quickly. What you want to do is again concentrate the flavours, so what this also does is remove the water from the tomatoes and leaves you with a concentrated tomato flavour. A bolognese is after all, a tomato and meat sauce. So cook this mixture until it is very thick and almost dry, and develops massive flavour compounds. Note that whole tomatoes break down very easily here. Oh, and season lightly at this point.
Now add some of your liquids while the heat is still right up - the tomato juice that you kept, a few glugs of tomato sauce, worcestershire sauce (be liberal - it's good stuff), fish sauce (smells horrible but is brilliant as an ingredient - about 5 glugs), a splash of white wine (not too much here), the two bay leaves, a drop of liquid smoke works well at this point if you have, some dried origanum and your grated nutmeg. Cook this for another 5 minutes on high until it begins to tighten up again (lose water).
Why do we do this? For flavour. All of these are your flavourings that you're adding to your base flavours. They are there to either emphasise other flavours (like the worcerstershire sauce and fish sauce which help to bring out the meaty flavours of the sauce) or to introduce complementing flavours (like the origanum and white wine). The wine also adds a little more acidity to the dish, but we balance this with the sweet and salty flavours of the other ingredients. You also cook this on high to create a roasted flavour in this sauce, as you can see happening in the pic:
Now drop the heat to the lowest possible setting and add about a half a cup of milk. It might split a little, but this is fine, it will come together all on its own as you continue to cook. Also add a half a glass of red wine here and the beef mince that you cooked earlier.
Why do we do this? For the life of me I can't remember but the Italian woman in Rome told me to add milk, and all other traditional recipes call for it. I know it will add a richness to the final product which I suppose could be the reason. Or it could be the lactose sugars in milk, but I'm not going to speculate further. Oh and I add the red wine here because I like the flavour it adds. Here, like this:
Now taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper (only add pepper at this point as it burns if you add it earlier) and cover with a lid and cook for at least one hour, preferably as long as you can, up to six hours.
Why do we do this? To develop the flavours and to soften the mince, which at the high temperatures we cook it at, goes a little crisp. That's not a good texture for bolognese, so you have to cook it like a stew now. This is it just after the initial stir:
And this is what it looks like after cooking for quite a while:
And remember to add some fresh basil just before serving.
Hope this helps those of you not sure how to tackle a traditional bolognese sauce. Yes, the bottled sauces are easier and less time consuming but will never, ever approach the flavour that you get from this. Not in a million years. I also hope that it helps you to understand some of the science of bolognese making and food in general.
I'm turning this into a cannelloni with a sherry and mushroom sauce, so that recipe will follow a little later...
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