Bolognese Sauce

                                
                                     Bolognese Sauce 

The secret to the best Bolognese Sauce is: TIME. Yes, it needs to cook 2 1/2 - 3 hrs.. But if you want to make the best Lasagne ever, you need to have the original Sauce Bolognese. And trust me, once you tried it, you will never make it any other way. Its actually pretty easy. It simmers for itself once you have all ingredients combined.

First you start with a "Sofrito". That's the base to basically every Sauce. Its vegetables fried til their soft. You don't want to miss that. That's giving so much flavor. 

That's what you need:

- 1 lbs ground meat ( I used 1/3 of ground veal, beef and pork)

- some pork sausage (optional)

- 1 pack of diced Pancetta (You can find that at Target supercenters or Publix)

- 1 cup of red wine ( I used Chianti) 

- 1 Onion, diced (or if its a big one, just a half)

- 2-3 Carrots, diced

- 1 stalk Celery, diced

- 1-2 Parsnip, diced 

- 2-3 cloves of Garlic, finely chopped

- 2 cans whole Tomatoes, broke apart with your hands

- Salt, Pepper

That's how its made: 

First, you take the diced onion, carrot, parsnip and celery and put it in a high frying pan with a little bit of Olive oil and fry it til its soft. Doesn't has to be on the highest heat. Go medium so you don't burn them. 

Then add the diced Pancetta. Let it fry a bit. Then you add the Garlic. Garlic burns fast so be careful. 

Then you add the pork sausage and the ground meat. Now it is important that you fry it good til its nice small crumbly. Let it fry a little bit longer after its brown to get a nice dark brown color. 

The red wine is going in now and is bringing down the heat. With this you are releasing all the flavor in the frying pan. Let it simmer til you can't smell the Alcohol no more.

Add a bit salt and pepper. You can season it later more, so be careful. Because its cooking so long, its cooking down a lot of the liquid and the flavors are getting more intense. Now you also add the whole Tomatoes you have broken down with your hands a bit. You want some nice chunks in your sauce. 

Now that whole thing is simmering for 2 1/2 - 3 hrs., stirring occasionally. 

You can eat the Sauce Bolognese to just Pasta or, like me, as the base for your Lasagne. I will post the recipe to the Lasagne later. 

Guten Appetit