Spaghetti bolognese: a meat sauce simmered for an hour, Polish home style
A sauce every Pole knows, though in Bologna ragù is served with tagliatelle rather than spaghetti: minced meat browned hard, onion, carrot and celery, passata and tomato paste, a bay leaf, an hour of gentle simmering. An hour, not a quarter of one: that is when the sauce thickens, the meat turns tender and the flavours merge. A double batch is dinner tonight and a second one waiting in the freezer.
Your own work in that: 37 min.
- Chopping 10 min
- Browning 15 min
- Sauce simmering 60 min
- Pasta 12 min
Step by step
0 / 6 doneDice the vegetables finely
Cut the onion, carrot and celery into very fine dice, 3–4 mm; chop the garlic. Fine dice melts into the sauce and gives it sweetness, not chunks.
Ingredients: 500 g minced beef and pork · 1 pcs onion · 1 pcs carrot · 1 pcs celery stalk · 2 cloves garlic · 3 tbsp olive oil · 2 tbsp tomato paste · 700 ml tomato passata · 100 ml milk · 1 pcs bay leaf · 1 tsp dried oregano · 1 tsp sugar · 1½ tsp salt · ½ tsp black pepper
Onion, carrot, celery: 3 mm diceBrown the meat hard
Heat 2 spoons of olive oil in a wide pot over high heat. Add the meat, break it up with a spoon and fry 8–10 minutes, stirring only now and then, until the juices evaporate and the meat starts to sizzle and brown in places. Move to a plate.
TipGrey meat stewed in its own juice is the commonest bolognese mistake. High heat, a wide pot and patience: the browned bits are a flavour passata alone can't give.
High heat, until browned in placesSoften the vegetables, fry the paste
In the same pot, in the remaining oil, soften the onion, carrot and celery over medium heat 6 minutes, adding the garlic for the last minute. Add the tomato paste and fry 2 minutes, stirring, until it darkens to brick red. Return the meat.
TipTomato paste fried in fat loses its raw, metallic edge and gains depth. Two minutes that make the difference.
Vegetables soft, paste brick redSimmer for an hour
Pour in the passata and milk, add the bay leaf, oregano, sugar, salt and pepper. Bring to the boil, lower the heat to minimum and simmer with the lid ajar 60 minutes, stirring every quarter hour. If the sauce gets too thick, add half a cup of water. It is done when thick, dark and glossy with fat on top.
TipA quarter of an hour gives tomato soup with meat; an hour gives sauce. Milk softens the acidity of the tomatoes and rounds out the flavour; it goes into the classic ragù of Bologna too. Stock gives a lighter sauce, but a good one.
An hour on the lowest heatCook the pasta
In a large pot of salted water (a spoon of salt per 4 litres) cook the spaghetti a minute less than the packet says. Before draining, scoop out a cup of the cooking water.
Ingredients: 400 g spaghetti · 60 g parmesan
A minute less, a cup of water savedToss and serve
Move the pasta into the pot of sauce, add half a cup of the cooking water and toss over the heat 1 minute, until every strand is coated. Serve with grated parmesan. The sauce keeps 4 days in the fridge and freezes for 3 months.
TipPasta in the sauce, not sauce on the pasta: the starch in the cooking water binds the sauce to the strands. Spooning sauce onto dry pasta leaves it at the bottom of the plate.
Pasta tossed with the sauce, parmesan
Before you start
With red wine
Pour in half a cup of dry red wine after frying the paste and let it evaporate 2 minutes before adding the passata. A deeper, grown-up flavour.
With mushrooms
250 g diced button mushrooms fried separately and added for the simmer: a more filling sauce with less meat.
Lasagne from the same sauce
A double batch of sauce, pasta sheets and béchamel: lasagne for 8. Sauce from the freezer works just as well.
