Bolognese sauce
Prep time: about 30-45 minutes
Cooking time: about 5 hours
Yield: A lot, depending on your sauce preference.
Should feed 10 easily.
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Remove all but the bottom shelf, and find a large pot that will fit inside your oven. In the large pot, melt the fat over medium heat. Once the fat has melted, add the guanciale and render for about five minutes. (Be careful here – guanciale will go from just right to totally burned pretty quickly). Once the fat has rendered from the guanciale, remove with a slotted spoon and set aside, keeping the rendered fat in the pot.
2. Turn heat to high and wait for the fat to start shimmering. Add all of the ground meats and brown, stirring occasionally. Once the meat is browned, stir in the pureed liver and cook for just a minute or two. Once the liver is absorbed into the meat, remove the browned meat with a slotted spoon and toss it into a bowl with the guanciale.
3. Cook celery, carrots, onion and garlic for about five minutes, using the same pot and the same fat and meat juices left behind from the previous step. Once the vegetables are softened (not fully cooked), add the wine and let simmer over medium heat for about 15 minutes, or until the liquid has reduced by half.
4. Once the wine has reduced, add all of your meats back in. Add the pureed tomatoes, stock, milk, tomato paste and bay leaves. Have a taste. You should only slightly taste the tomato. However, if you don’t taste any tomato whatsoever, start adding in just a little more tomato paste at a time, tasting as you go, until you are happy with the flavor. It might seem a little bland right now. It’s OK – the magic of this sauce really happens during step five.
5. Bring your sauce up to a lazy simmer and cook for about 15 minutes. Once the sauce is simmering, take the whole pot and stick it in the oven, uncovered. Bake the bolognese in the oven for about four hours, checking on it every 45 minutes or so. Over time, the sauce will begin to form a dark red crust on the top and sides of the pot. Using your slotted spoon, scrape all of this goodness from the sides of the pot, and stir the crust into the sauce. All of this crust will break down into the sauce and amplify its flavor tremendously.
6. After about four hours of baking, remove sauce from the oven. It should be very thick – almost like a paste. While the sauce is still hot, stir in the heavy cream and grated cheese, and season to taste with salt and pepper. Traditionally, this sauce should be served with tagliatelle, but feel free to put it on any type of pasta you want. The sauce will keep in the refrigerator for 5 – 7 days and in an airtight container in the freezer for about a month.
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