Bolognese Sauce

I still have a week off before I have to go back to work. So I've been mostly occupying my time with slow cook foods - now that I do have the time to do it. This Bolognese recipe is something I eyed some time back on Spinach Tiger and always wanted to try it out but never had the time. I really wanted to try it out because it required each individual step to reach a certain stage before moving on. Like completely cooking off the wine and milk. That's two cups of milk by the way.. I really wondered how long that would take. :P

Bolognese Sauce
Recipe adapted from Spinach Tiger - Originally from Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classical Cooking

Serves 6-8

• 2 Tablespoon vegetable oil
• 6 Tablespoon butter
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1 1/3 cup chopped celery
• 1 1/2 cup chopped carrot
• 2 slices of chopped bacon
  
• 1kg ground beef chuck (seasoned with salt and pepper before cooking)
• Salt
• Black pepper, freshly ground
• 2 cups whole milk
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 2 cup dry white wine
• 3 cups canned imported Italian plum tomatoes with juice, chopped
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 pounds pasta (tossed with 2 Tablespoons of butter when ready)
  
• Freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese at the table
  

On medium heat, add oil, butter, onion, until translucent. Add celery, carrots, cook 2 minutes, stirring, not browning.

Add bacon then meat, break up with fork, and when no pink color is showing, add milk.

Turn down heat to simmer, stirring frequently until milk has evaporated. Add nutmeg.

Add wine, stirring thoroughly. Once wine has completely evaporated, add tomatoes, and simmer on very very low stirring every now and again. If sauce dries out, add 1/2 cup water a time.

Cook for a minimum of 3 hours. I think 4-6 hours is better.

Taste and season with salt, pepper.

Serve over pasta.

I had this simmering on low heat for about 6 hours. The resulting bolognese was bursting with flavor and both rich and creamy at the same time. And because we only have 4 people in our household, the leftover bolognese was soooo much better the next day. I will definitely be making this recipe again. :)

Notes:

• The original recipe doesn't call for bacon, so you can omit this out if you want.