Cuthbert

By ragu, do you mean Bolognese pal?

Contribution to the thread:

http://oi62.tinypic.com/2aadjer.jpg

No real recipe, just white rice, fried plantain, chicken, roast potatoes and some veg. Bit of hot sauce. And some beer.

Chula Vista

My god that looks f*cking scrumptious!

__________________

“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

Chula Vista

Turkey Breast.

__________________

“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

Chula Vista

Decided to skip the traditional and do a Bolognese for dinner with the kids this year. A ton of work and then 4 hours of simmering but there's no other way to get that intense flavor. Let me know if anyone wants the recipe.

__________________

“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

Frownland

*raises hand*

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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

Pet_Sounds

I experimented with maple syrup fried onions for my dad's and my traditional Christmas Eve hamburgers. They turned out well.

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Everybody's dying just to get the disease

Chula Vista

One large yellow onion, carrots, and celery. Dice up the onion and then dice the carrots and celery. You wanna buy enough stocks of each to insure you end up with equal amounts of onion, carrot, and celery. Chop up 5 cloves of garlic.

First important part: Use a large sauce pan that's NOT non-stick. Later on you are going to want things to stick and caramelize and it just doesn't work with a Teflon like coating.

On high heat melt 2 tblsp each of salted butter and good olive oil. Toss in your veggies with a few pinches of salt and then sweat them down for about 10-12 minutes. Stir often.

Add in 4.5 ounces of chopped up pancetta. Continue to stir and saute for another 18-20 minutes.

Add in 1 pound each of beef and pork but do it in thirds. Add a third then chop it up and stir until browned. Then repeat with the next two thirds. If you add all of the meat at once you end up with too much liquid and your meat will boil instead of browning.

Once all the meat is browned turn the heat to high and alternate stirring the mixture and then letting it sit for a couple of minutes. At this point you're letting all of the liquids evaporate while the flavors cook together. After about 15-20 minutes you'll start getting a nice golden brown caramelized fond on the bottom of your pan. Be careful not to let things burn at this point. Once you've built up an even layer of fond turn the heat to medium.

Second important part: Deglaze the pan with 1 cup of good white Chardonnay. Don't skimp on the quality of the wine. If it isn't good enough to drink don't cook with it.

You want to stir the wine/meat/veggie mixture around with a wooden spoon making sure to scrape all of the fond from the bottom of the pan.

Next add one 28 ounce can of San Marzano diced or chopped tomatoes, juice and all, two cups of whole milk, and one cup of beef stock (not broth).

Add a little more salt and a good amount of fresh ground black pepper, stir, and bring to a boil. Turn the heat on the lowest setting, put a cover on the pot ajar - make sure it doesn't seal - then simmer for 4 hours, stirring occasionally. Each time you lift the cover to stir let the condensation drip back into the sauce.

Cook your pasta, drain, and then toss with a couple of tblsp of salted butter. Top the sauce with chopped basil and freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Guarateed this will rival any bolognese you will find in any restaurant anywhere. (this is not my recipe BTW)

__________________

“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

Cuthbert

That looks decent. I think ragu is one of those dishes where there is no correct way to cook it. It is one of my favourite things to cook, I have read a few articles from chefs who've gone to Italy looking for the authentic recipe but it turns out there is no such thing, they (the different regions) do it differently. Red or white wine, garlic or none, veg stock or beef stock. Some even use 50/50 beef and horse mince or some uses horse. Co sign the pancetta/carrots/celery.

But I noticed they don't use the same amount of tomato as we do as it's a meat sauce not a tomato one.

The thing I noticed that improved it the most for me was to slow cook the mince, did it with that cottage pie by accident cos I put too much beer in then had to cook it until it thickened and the meat was excellent. Must have been cooking for 3/4 hours.

Chula Vista

Agreed that there's no correct way. But this is a more than decent interpretation. It's pretty damn good. Here's where I stole it from.

How to Make an Authentic Bolognese Sauce | Food Nouveau

__________________

“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

Cuthbert

Yeah agree with it all. Red wine is meant to overpower it apparently and you're meant to use white, but I like it with red