Bolognese Sauce

Bolognese Sauce 

This recipe makes about 2 ½ quarts and serves 8 to 10.

A true classic meat sauce. An authentic sauce would be hard to recreate, as every Italian family has their own version and many contain fish or anchovies. Most contain chicken livers. Yes, that is right! Slow cooked chicken livers give the sauce a depth and creaminess and most of the livery flavor is cooked out. Many different cuts of meat are used and most start out with pancetta which is a cured pork belly. Most use milk and reduce, then wine and reduce. Most recipes call for tomatoes, although some don't. When a recipe does call for tomatoes, they are pureed into a well blended sauce. This is not a quick sauce. If you wish to have a quick sauce refer to our quick marinara. This sauce is a long slow simmer, cooked all day (at least 3 hours) so that meat, vegetables, livers, and wine all melt together and the aroma fills the house! All the Italian cookbooks I read talk about the fat separating from the sauce and that is part of the process. You allow the fat to separate, the sauce cooks down, and the sauce reabsorbs the fat. It is long and slow.

Use wide noodles like pappardelle or tagliatelle or use the sauce for a baked lasagne.

A gluten free potato gnocchi is a great vehicle if you are gluten free.

As with many of the recipes that take a long time, I highly recommend doubling the recipe and freezing half the sauce for the future. My thought is this; if you spend all this time, why not make enough for the future?

This recipe calls for chicken livers. As with all our meats, I only recommend chicken livers from great sources, like a good farm where the chickens were raised well, outside under the sun.

Most recipes do not call for gelatin, but I have made this recipe enough to know that I like the creaminess the gelatin adds.

2 tsp. oregano

Pinch red pepper flakes

¼ cup fresh sage

½ cup fresh parsley 

 Salt

 Black pepper, ground fresh from the mill

1 cup dry white wine

1 ½ cups canned, imported Italian plum tomatoes, cut up, with their juice

1 ¼ to 1 ½ lbs. pasta (pappardelle or tagliatelle)

2 Tbsp. butter for tossing the pasta

Freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese at the table

Ingredients

½ pound chicken livers 

1 cup whole milk

½ cup heavy cream

¼ ounce (one packet) gelatin

1 tsp. grated whole nutmeg

5 oz. pancetta, cut into small (½ inch) chunks

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

4 garlic cloves, minced or grated, sliced thin

½ cup chopped onion

⅔ cup chopped celery

⅔ cup chopped carrot

3 bay leaves 

1 lb. each (3 lbs. total ) ground beef (chuck or veal), pork, and lamb

Combine the chicken livers with the milk and cream and put in a food processor. Sprinkle with salt, nutmeg and gelatin and pulse in the processor until finely ground, about 10 to 12 pulses. 

Heat a large heavy bottom pot and add the pancetta. Allow the pancetta to cook until it is softened. Add the garlic, onion, celery, and carrot and cook until all the vegetables are soft. Add the oil, ground meat, and chicken livers. Cook until the meat is cooked through. Add the wine and cook until the wine is reduced by half. 

While the wine is cooking and reducing, blend a can of tomatoes in either a food processor or blender until smooth. Add the tomatoes, salt, pepper, herbs, red pepper, and parsley to the meat and simmer until the tomatoes and all the ingredients are well blended. 

Now is the time for a long slow simmer. Cook, uncovered, for 3 hours or more, stirring from time to time. While the sauce is cooking, you will see that it begins to dry out and the fat separates from the meat. To keep it from sticking, add 1/2 cup of water whenever necessary. At the end, however, no water should be left and the fat well blended back into the sauce. Taste and correct for seasoning.

Toss with cooked drained pasta, add 2 tablespoons of butter, and serve with freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano on the side.

Potato Gnocchi

You will be learning how to make mashed potatoes here, and the key is for light and fluffy potatoes. The best tool for this is a potato ricer, as it forces the cooked potato through small round holes and makes a rice-like product. You can also use a food mill to make mashed potatoes. And a large fork will work just fine. Make sure you don’t leave chunks of potatoes as this will make the dough crumbly. 

Using too much flour in your potato gnocchi dough will make your gnocchi tough. Add the flour slowly, as you can always add more but you can’t remove it once it’s been mixed into the dough. 

Make little ropes— short like 3 inches, squeezing the dough periodically as you roll it, to ensure that there aren’t air gaps in the dough. It should be solid all the way through or the gnocchi will not hold together when you cut them from the ropes. You can use Yukon gold potatoes. Don't use red skin potatoes or waxier potatoes, as the dumplings will become gooey when boiled. 

This recipe is made without eggs, but adding an egg white to the dough will make it easier to handle. If you plan to double the recipe, use an egg white to hold it together better.

You want smooth, light, and fluffy, but not sticky or glue-like potatoes. Do not use a blender or food processor, which will turn them into a thick glue.

2 lbs. (about 4 large) russet potatoes

2 Tbsp. (28 g) unsalted butter, melted, and cooled

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 cup (140 g) all purpose gluten free flour, plus more as necessary (Alternatively you can use potato starch and add 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum (omit if your gluten free blend already contains it.)

Preheat oven to 400°F. 

Wash, pierce, and bake the potatoes in their skins for 45 minutes, or until they give when you pierce them. Let them cool slightly, then peel. If you have a potato ricer or food mill, use it to mash the potatoes until smooth, or mash with a fork. Put mashed potatoes in a bowl, add the butter and salt, and mix to combine. Cover the bowl and place the mashed potatoes in the refrigerator to chill until no longer warm. Remove the potatoes from the refrigerator, and add almost all of the flour and xanthan gum, if using, and reserving a few tablespoons, just in case it is needed. Mix well and knead the dough together. It should hold together well when squeezed and feel firm but not dry. If the dough seems too soft, add more flour by the teaspoonful and knead it in. Pull off pieces of dough about a handful at a time and place on a very lightly floured flat surface. Seal together any cracks in the dough with your fingers and roll into a cylinder. After you have rolled a few ropes, allow to rest for a few minutes to give the dough a chance to absorb the moisture of the potatoes.

While the dough is sitting, bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil over medium-high heat. Once the water has boiled, cut the ropes into approximately 1-inch pieces with a sharp knife, and then mark each with the back of the tines of a large fork to make ridges. In batches of about 20, gently drop the dumplings into the boiling water and cook gnocchi for about 3 minutes, or until they all float to the top. Remove the cooked gnocchi with a slotted spoon and place on serving dishes. Repeat with the remaining dumplings. Serve immediately with Bolognese sauce, grated or shaved cheese, and fresh herbs, if you like.

The raw, shaped and formed gnocchi can be frozen in a single layer on a baking sheet, then sealed in an airtight container for later use. Boil them from frozen, simply adding a minute or two to the boiling time.

Sauteed Broccoli Rabe

1 bunch broccoli rabe

3 cups ice and water 

Olive oil

4 garlic cloves sliced thin

Optional: Sprinkle of red pepper flakes

2 Tbsp. lemon juice 

Trim the broccoli rabe and wash well.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add 1 teaspoon sea salt.

Drop the broccoli rabe in the water and cook until tender but still firm.

Using a strainer, scoop the broccoli rabe out of the boiling water and drop into the bowl of water with the ice. This will stop it from cooking. You can keep it in the refrigerator until later when you wish to serve.

Heat a skillet with olive oil and garlic. Add the broccoli rabe and toss well to coat and heat through. Place on a plate and a sprinkle of red pepper flakes and/or lemon juice is perfect.