The Perfect Bolognese

To be honest, I took the original recipe from Heston Blumenthal. The man behind The Fat Duck restaurant would have to be the culinary equivalent of a god made mortal. The man is just a genius who combine the best of food science with the ultimate in dining experience. To me, he personifies passion - in anything.

I made the original recipe and it was received with great acclaim when I served it up. My long suffering wife put up with my nervous poking, prodding and stirring as I faithfully followed the recipe. Many hours went in to agonising over the various procedures, making sure ingredients were weighed to the gram, prepared perfectly, and then there was a lot of tense hovering over bubbling pots. Now, of course, I am quite blaise over the process with the timing having become somewhat more of an ad-hoc process.

I remember quite well the first time I served this with great anticipation and I watched the joy on the faces of my all-too-willing recipients, but I could not help feeling that it could be a little bit better when I tasted it. So I began experimenting.

Fresh tomatoes in the compote became tinned tomatoes because I felt they just tasted better, Maybe it was the addition of salt and the heat from the canning process but I found that the fresh tomatoes were possibly just a little bit bland. Whole milk became some milk with a splash of cream; veal? that became minced lamb; minced oxtail? at todays prices I don't think so! that became chuck steak which I convinced the butcher to mince and eventually just cheap and fatty mince from the bulk section at the local supermarket .

This combination came from another version of bolognese I have made a few times in the past and might have another crack at - the meat sauce was made up of whole lamb shin on bone chops slowly simmered in a minced beef and tomato sauce, to which small meatballs of minced pork and finely grated parmesan with a seasoning of pepper but no salt are added. It is very rich, very fattening, very filling and very, very tasty.

So I present to you the recipe in many parts for Heston Blumenthals Perfect Bolognaise and I encourage you to experiment as I did. You can also use this as a meat sauce in a Lasagne but with this comes a warning - a little goes a very long way. Serve small amounts, a lot smaller that you think. This recipe would easily serve 12 and yes, it does freeze well.

At the end of the recipe I will list just the ingredients in one list. This is for me to make it easier to work out what I need to buy when I am making this.

Ingredients

For the Caramelized Onions

1 star anise

500 grams onion

25 mls virgin olive oil (I use bran oil)

Finely slice the onions. Place a large, heavy-bottomed frying pan over a medium heat for 5 minutes. Crush the star anise and bag it up in a square of muslin. (I didn’t) Add this to the pan, along with 25ml oil and the sliced onions. Cook for 20 minutes, or until the onions are soft and caramelised, stirring occasionally. Set aside.

For the Soffrito

4 cloves of garlic
475 gr diced onion
390 gr diced carrot
300 gr diced celery stalk
50 ml extra virgin olive oil

Finely dice the onions, carrots and celery. Mince the garlic. Preheat another large, heavybottomed frying pan over a low heat for 5 minutes. Pour 50ml oil into the pan, then tip in the garlic, onions, carrots and celery and cook this soffritto over a medium- low heat for about 20 minutes, or until the raw onion smell has gone. Transfer the soffritto to your preheated crockpot and wipe clean the pan.

For the meat

(originally

50ml extra virgin olive oil455 gr oxtail, boned and minced280 gr pork, also grinded, although Heston used cubes284 gr veal, minced (my addition)650 ml Oaked Chardonnay (Chardonnay Reserve 2007, Viu Manent)500 ml whole milk)

now

50ml bran oil
500 grams NOT LEAN minced beef
250 grams minced pork
250 grams minced lamb
1 bottle oaked Chardonnay
400ml standard milk
100 mls of cream

Place the pan over a high heat for 10 minutes. Pour in 50ml bran oil and wait until it very hot. Add the minced meat. Stir until browned all over. (To brown properly, all the meat has to touch the surface of the pan. If it doesn’t, do it in batches.) Tip the browned meat into a sieve over a bowl (to allow the fat to drain off). Reserve. Deglaze the pan by adding a splash of wine, bringing it to the boil, and then scraping the base of the pan to collect all the tasty bits stuck to the bottom. Once the liquid has reduced by half, add to the reserved meat.

Remove the (bag of) star anise from the caramelised onions and then tip the onions into the stockpot containing the meat. Add the remaining wine and deglaze the frying pan. When the wine has reduced by half, pour it into the crockpot. Add the soffritto to the pot as well.

Add the milk and cream and enough hot water to cover entirely, and simmer on “Low” with the lid half on for 6 to 8 hours. At all times the ingredients should be covered by the liquid, so be prepared to add more water. (Don’t worry if the milk becomes slightly granular: it won’t affect the end result.)

For the Tomato Compote

2kg tinned whole tomatoes
1 tsp salt
200ml extra virgin olive oil
6 large cloves of garlic
340 gr finely diced onion
2 heaped tsp coriander seeds
2 star anise
6 cloves
8-10 drops Tabasco
8-10 drops Thai fish sauce
3 tsps Worcestershire sauce
2 heaped tbsp tomato ketchup
60ml sherry vinegar

1 bouquet garni (consisting of 7 sprigs of fresh thyme and 1 fresh bay leaf).

Take each tomato and using your thumb, split them open over a sieve and bowl to catch the seeds, membrane and cores. Reserve the cheeks of the tomatoes in another bowl. Sprinkle over the salt and leave for 20 minutes to catch all the juices. Roughly chop the cheeks and reserve.

Place a large heavy-bottomed saucepan over a low heat. Add 100ml of the olive oil. Mince the garlic and add with the onions to the pan. Cook for 10-15 minutes until the soft, but do not allow to colour.

Crush the coriander and add to a muslin bag with the star anise and cloves. Add to the onions, along with the chopped tomato cheeks and the reserve juice that has collected under the sieve, but discard the seeds and membrane. Adding them would make the compote bitter.

Add the Tobasco, fish sauce, Worcestershire sauce, tomato ketchup and sherry vinegar. Drop in the bouquet garni and cook over a low heat for 2 hours.

To really bring out the flavours of the compote, add the remaining oil to the compote and turn the heat to high. Fry the compote for 15-20 minutes, stirring regularly to make sure it does not catch. Once finished you can pour off any remaining oil which will have a fantastic flavour and can be used to dress the final presentation or use in as part of a salad dressing. Just dont throw it out.

This compote can keep in the fridge for at least a week so can be made in advance.

Finishing the dish

1 batch of tomato compote
1 batch of meatsauce
100g good quality spaghetti per person
sherry vinegar, to taste
Parmesan cheese (Parmigiano Reggiano)
1 bouquet garni (in a sheet of leek, wrap 6 tarragon leaves, 4 sprigs of parsley and the leaves from the top of a bunch of celery)
unsalted butter
extra virgin olive oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Stir the tomato compote (including the bag of spices) into the meat-sauce and cook over a very low heat for a final 2 hours, stirring occasionally.

Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil for the pasta. For every 100g of pasta, you’ll need 1 litre of water and 10g salt. (If you don’t have a large enough pan it’s essential to use two pans rather than overcrowd one.)

Put the spaghetti into the pan, give it a stir, then bring back to the boil and cook until the pasta is just tender but with a bite. Check the cooking time on the packet and use that as a guideline, but taste it every few minutes as this is the only way to judge when the pasta is ready.

Before taking the Bolognese sauce off the heat, check the seasoning and then add some sherry vinegar (tasting as you go) to balance the richness of the sauce. Add a generous grating of Parmesan (but not too much, as it can make the sauce overly salty) and remove the sauce from the heat. Take out the original thyme and bay bouquet garni and the bag of spices. Replace these with the parsley and tarragon bouquet garni, stir in 100g of unsalted butter and let the sauce stand for 5 minutes.

Once the pasta is cooked, drain, and rinse it thoroughly. Return to the pot to warm through. (Since the ragù is not going to be mixed with the pasta, it needs to be rinsed to prevent it becoming starchy and sticking together.) Add a generous knob of butter (about 50g per 400g of pasta) and coat with olive oil and the reserved oil from the final frying of the compote. To serve, wind portions of pasta around a carving fork and lay them horizontally in wide, shallow bowls. Top with the Bolognese sauce and finish with a grating of Parmesan.

Eat it! And serve the oaked chardonnay that went in it. I was quite surprised how well that combined. I really loved it.

List of ingredients

1 star anise

500 grams onion

25 mls virgin olive oil (I use bran oil)

4 cloves of garlic
475 gr diced onion
390 gr diced carrot
300 gr diced celery stalk
50 ml extra virgin olive oil

50ml bran oil
500 grams NOT LEAN minced beef
250 grams minced pork
250 grams minced lamb
1 bottle oaked Chardonnay
400ml standard milk
100 mls of cream

2kg Whole tinned tomatoes - and dont buy the cheap ones. Italian plum.
1 tsp salt
200ml extra virgin olive oil
6 large cloves of garlic
340 gr finely diced onion
2 heaped tsp coriander seeds
2 star anise
6 cloves
8-10 drops Tabasco
8-10 drops Thai fish sauce
3 tsps Worcestershire sauce
2 heaped tbsp tomato ketchup
60ml sherry vinegar
1 bouquet garni (consisting of 7 sprigs of fresh thyme and 1 fresh bay leaf)

I do make some parts of this dish completely differently which does change the final outcome. If you really want to know, well, I am open to bribes.