Bolognaise sauce, sauce bolognaise, ragù alla bolognese. Call it as you please, but please please please, make it in the right way! No strange stuff, like cilantro, cream, spring onions…

Keep it simple and plain!

The only difficult part, if you can call it so, it’s the long cooking hours, but you can cut them down making it in a pressure cooker.

Lets’ start from the basics.

Ingredients

500 g premium choice minced beef

100 g diced pancetta (or diced bacon)

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1/2 onion

1 garlic clove

1 carrot

1 celery stalk

1/2 glass of dry red wine

1/2 glass of milk

800 g canned tomatoes, better whole, using even the sauce inside the cans

1 tablespoon triple tomato purée

Salt and pepper

2 pinches of sugar

For 6 people as pasta sauce or for a 4 people lasagna

1. Finely chop the onion.
2. Peel and finely chop the garlic and the carrot.
3. Clean and finely chop the celery stalk.
4. In a large sauce pan, possibly with high-sided, heat the olive oil. Add the pancetta and the onion and mildly brown them.
5. Add the carrot and the garlic, and finally the celery.
6. Add the minced beef and turn it with a wooden fork, crumble it. Let it cook, stirring, until brown. Salt and pepper.
7. Turn up the heat and add the wine. Let it evaporate.
8. Add the milk, and always keeping you fire up, cook the sauce and let the milk to be absorbed by the meat.
9. Add the caned tomatoes, tomato purée and sugar, stir, lower the fire to the minimum, cover and let it cook for 2-3 hours, stirring occasionally.

Note

You can add, if you really really want it, some basil leaves, but they are superfluous.

In season, you can substitute the canned tomatoes with fresh skinned ones. Bring to the boil a big pan of water. Cook the whole tomatoes until the skin begin to pop off. Drain them, pell, chop and add them to the sauce like the canned tomatoes.