Ragù alla bolognese sauce
Servings 8 people
Ingredients
- 500 g minced veal
- 100 g white onion
- 100 g carrot
- 200 ml red wine
- 200 ml full-fat milk
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tsp dried porcini
- 1/2 tsp dried winter savory
- 3 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp brown sugar
- freshly ground pepper to taste
- 1 1/2 L tomato purée (plus water to rinse tomato boxes)
Instructions
- Peel and finely mince the onion and carrots. Set a large pot with a thick bottom on medium heat and warm the olive oil. Add the minced vegetables and cook until tender but not brown, about 4 minutes.
- Add the minced meat to the pot, raise the heat to medium-high, and move around often to ensure all the meat gets cooked. Add 2 tsp salt, the dried porcini and dried herbs. You can sub winter savory with thyme. I like to use smoked salt to the meat for extra flavour.
- When all the meat has cooked through, raise the heat to high and pour in the red wine. Keep stirring it until it has all evaporated. I recommend a dry red wine; I used Barbera from Piemonte (Italy).
- When all the wine has been absorbed and evaporated, pour in the milk. Repeat the same procedure: keep stirring on high heat until it's all been absorbed.
- Lower the heat to medium and add the tomato purée. Chopped tomatoes work equally fine, but I prefer a smoother texture as there will already be enough bite from the meat and carrot. Rinse the boxes/bottles of the tomato sauce with a small amout of water and add that water to the pot as well. Add 1 tsp of salt and the brown sugar and give it a good stir.
- Lower the heat to medium-low and let the sauce cook covered for one hour, remembering to stir from time to time. After one hour, remove the lid, reduce the heat to minimum, and cook for one more hour, checking the sauce constantly to prevent burning the bottom. This last hour is meant to reduce the sauce.
- You can cook this sauce for a longer time, or you can even let it rest overnight and cook it some more the following day, if you wish to make it even thicker. You can use it directly in any pasta dish, or jar it and store it for later.