Ragu Bolognese with Mario Batali
By
Bologna, Italy
Originating in Bologna, Italy, Bolognese sauce refers to an Italian meat based sauce, with a minimal amount of tomato. Bologna is within the region of Emilia-Romagna in Italy, the native home of classic culinary ingredients such as Parmigiano-Reggiano, delicious Balsamic vinegar, Mortadella, and Prosciutto di Parma. Italy, as you know, is a country that takes their food very seriously, and the Accademia Italiana della Cucina, which is the Italian Gastronomic Society, has strict requirements on what dishes can be classified as Bolognese. Their strict ingredient requirements are confined to to beef, pancetta, onions, carrots, celery, tomato paste, meat broth, red wine, and as an option, milk or cream, although traditonal Bolognese dishes frequently include ground pork or ground veal. Here in this video, our beloved chef Mario Batali shares his technique for Ragu Bolognese, a meal close to his Italian roots. This classic Italian pasta dish is simple and requires minimal prep time, but will require an hour and a half of cooking time, and having made it more than once, we can honestly say that it is worthy of every minute. Absolutely give this recipe a try, you will not regret it.
Read on for the recipe!
Ragu Bolognese, courtesy of Mario Batali
5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3 tbsp butter
1 carrot, finely diced
1 medium onion diced
1 rib celery finely diced
1 clove garlic, sliced
1 lb ground veal
1 lb ground pork
1/4 lb pancetta or slab bacon, ground
1/2 tube of tomato paste
1 cup milk
1 cup dry white wine
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Parmigiano-Reggiano, to grate
In a 6 to 8-quart, heavy bottomed saucepan, heat the olive oil and butter over medium heat. Add the onions, celery, and garlic and sweat over medium heat until the vegetables are translucent and soft but not browned, about 10 to 15 minutes. Add the veal, pork, and pancetta and stir into the vegetables. Add the meat over high heat, stirring to keep the meat from sticking together until browned. Add the tomato paste, milk, and wine and simmer over medium-low heat for 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Season with salt and pepper, to taste, and remove from the heat.
When ready to use, the cooked pasta should be added to a saucepan with the appropriate amount of hot ragu Bolognese, and tossed so that the pasta is evenly coated by the ragu.
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- Chef Jim’s Delicious Braciole
Love Mario Batali. http://tinyurl.com/b6yke4
This looks perfectly yummy. Would it be un-Italian of me to want to eat it served over spaghetti squash?
Excellent info Heidi!! Impossible to resist Bolognese recipes!! Just yesterday had Fettuccini Bolognese
That looks very yummy! Mario is wonderful isn’t he?
That sounds fantastic, I’m a bit bolognese and ragu fan. Thanks for sharing the recipe!
It opens well when it says that every grandmother makes it differently!! My family’s recipe is very different- it’s olive oil only, beef and sausage, and a lot more tomatoes!! (oh, yeah, no milk and no butter!) But then again, I am from Romagna…
Oh, also- my ragu’ boils for at least 6 hours- when I am in a hurry!
Great recipe, and great explanations!! Thumbs up for Batali here!
Hey Mario,All I can say is (LET’S EAT)!!
[...] insistence, I did a web search for a real recipe to follow. The first link I clicked featured a video of Mario Batali making a traditional Ragu Bolognese. I’m so happy I followed the [...]
The ingredients mentions “pancetta or slab bacon” but the recipe by Mario doesn’t. At what point do we add the bacon?
zit te dubben of Bolognese recept http://tinyurl.com/b6yke4 met AH gehakt kan, of toch maar wachten op morgen voor De Lindenhoff?
Hi Sacha, in the written recipe it states ground pancetta or slab bacon, added at the same time as the other ingredients, but you’re right, in the video he adds the following ground meats: pork, veal, and beef. When I made it I did indeed use ground beef, but I would imagine the addition of ground pancetta or bacon would add a nice flavor boost. Good catch by you!
Thanks so much for visiting!
[...] Ragu Bolognese with Mario Batali [...]
Yesterday was the first time I tried to make a Bolognese sauce. I have always thought of tomoato paste as a shortcut. I find it very interesting that this sauce is made with tomato paste not sauce. I recently took an Italian language class. At a dinner at the end of the course I asked our teacher, who was from Clabria, how he would make a red sauce. He said he would sweat some shallots add tomatoe paste…What? At the time I thought, “well, he is a young man and doesn’t really know how to cook.” Silly me. I always thought that a ragu or bolognese had to cook for hours and had lots of whole fresh tomatoes.
I work with a fellow who is married to an Italian and in preparation to make the sauce asked her for her recipe. It is very simple, onions, carrots, celery, beef and tomatoe sauce. It had the direction to cook for hours on a low simmer. I also searched the web for reicpes and their seem to be two camps. Paste people, made like Mario does here, and Sauce people that simmer it for hours. I found it a bit confusing when paired with my own preconceptions and that each recipe claimed to be authentic Bolognese. From reading the Opening paragraph I see that this recipe is closer to the true Bolognese. Really they are two different sauces. I made the one with tomato sauce simmered for hours, delicious, but I will no longer look down on the Paste people and look forward to trying this method.
Buon Appetito,
jb
So far this is coming out good but beware of the rampant incongruity between the printed recipe and Batali’s instructions in the video. (Batali uses beef, not veal; he says to use “3 carrots” and “4 celery ribs” and multiple garlic cloves while the recipe suggests one of each). Makes for a very confusing cooking experience…at least it will if you’re a high-strung and inexperienced cook like me.
Thanks Bobo for your comment. It was quite some time ago when we made it, but I do recall a few discrepancies. Sorry that it was a bit confusing. I think that as you grow as a cook, while you undoubtedly will if you are cooking recipes like these, you will learn that it’s ok to improvise from time to time, both with ingredients and also with the cooking method. I’m so glad you tried it, and hope it turned out well! This is one dish that is almost more delicious the next day, similar to soup, as the flavors have more time to combine.
I guess the enamel pot is important. I only had a stainless steel big pot and it burned on the bottom during the one hour, was also a bit dryer. You can probably still do it but don’t just let it sit like I did, stirring might help.