Bolognese

Preparation

1. Finely dice the onions, celery and carrot and mince the garlic.

2. Put the oil in a large pan and sauté the soffritto for approx 20 mins.

3. Add the garlic and tomato purée

4. Turn up to medium, add the mince, and season with salt and pepper. Cook for around 5mins until is is browned off.
5. Add the wine to the main pain, turn the heat up more for 20-30 seconds and simmer until it has reduced in volume by about a third.

6. Turn the heat down to medium-low and stir in the tomatoes, bay leaves

7. Partly-cover with a lid and simmer over a low heat for up to 3 hours
8. Before serving remove the bay leaves and stir in the milk
9. Cook the tagliatelle in plenty of boiling salted water for around 20 mins.

10. Add any herbs to the sauce just before serving
11. Drain and divide the tagliatelle between the plates. Add a good ladle of the sauce. Finish with a twist of black pepper

Notes

• I tweaked this recipe in Oct 2023 to reflect some changes to how I make it. It takes longer this way but it is much better!
• Chop the veg as small as possible otherwise it will be like chunks of veg in a tomato sauce, rather than the veg becoming part of the sauce.
• I always recommend putting the puree in early, and the garlic and herbs late.
• Also - use the best tomatoes possible - never tinned chopped ones, either fresh (which will need to cook down for longer) or whole tinned, ideally a quality brand or DOP region.
• This recipe makes a sauce of approx 2 litres - if you are making more make sure you have a large enough pan
• Don't be tempted to add even more things to the sauce - it can become too much. The best Italian cooking is usually simple!

Ingredients

• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 500g steak mince
• 500g pork mince
• 2 cloves garlic
• 500g soffritto
• 180ml red wine
• 2 tins of tomatoes
• 2 bay leaves
• 2tbsp tomato purée
• 3 bay leaves
• 120ml milk
• ½ tsp ground black pepper
• 400g tagliatelle
• Optional fresh herbs
• 1 tbsp oregano
• 1 tsp thyme
• 1 tbsp basil

Equipment

• Large frying pan with lid
• Chopping board
• Knife
• Medium pan

Nutritional Facts

• Serving size: 502.9g
• (34% / 42%)   Calories: 843kcal
• (80%)Total fat: 44g
• (70%)   Saturated fat: 14g
• (68%)   Unsaturated fat: 23.8g
•     Mono: 20g
•     Poly: 3.8g
• (39%)   Cholesterol: 118mg
•   Trans Fat: 0.6g
• (22%)Total carbohydrates: 66g
•   Starch: 0g
• (26%)   Sugars: 7.7g
•     Sucrose: 0.6g
•     Glucose: 0.9g
•     Maltose: 0g
•     Lactose: 0g
•     Fructose: 0.7g
•     Galactose: 0.1g
• (24%)   Fibre: 6g
• (80%)Protein: 40g
• Salts
• (7%)   Sodium: 141mg
• (31%)   Potassium: 1.1g