Message Boards

all the ideas are great but i must say as Braces, i love the long slow cooking process and the red wine, a winner every time...

Enrich your sauce with porcini mushrooms. They're available from supermarkets but you have to rehydrate them (use the liquor in the sauce).
Alternatively add a porcini mushroom stock cube. They're available online at
www.mushroomcubes.co.uk

Does the cooking - I think I'll stick to helping with links or generalised information and keep my recipes out of it

Hi sexy betsy - I am going to try it with milk. I've been adding double cream at the end. I thought the original recipe with milk in was an error!

disqqworld - just post anyway.

"Does the cooking"...try it with milk, it really does work and the whole texture of the bolognese is better, seems smoother, somehow,

Love to give you my own personal recipe but somehow I think it would get deleted as there's bound to be an Italian Chef (perhaps even the one that trained me) that would object

I have cooked the recipe below a few times now. I hesitated about using milk at the beginning and added some double cream at the end.

My children prefer this sauce so much that they ask me to make the same when I do spag bol. One good thing is that one child swears he doesn't like onions but has not recognised their presence in this dish.
[link]

Have you every tried putting in roughly a cup of milk (as in cup and saucer) about half an hour to a hour before finishing of your bolagnase sauce, it transforms the whole dish totally.

thankyou for all ideas !! I will try each one when making bolognese next time.

This is the recipe I've used for 30 or so years:
1lb mince, large onion, garlic, mushrooms, tin chopped tomatoes, dollop of tomato puree and a bottle of red wine. Fry onion and garlic, add mushrooms and cook. Then add the mince and colour, season with s & p and any other herbs you like, add the toms and puree bring to the boil and then add half the red wine, cover and simmer gently for 2 hours. Remove the lid and continue to simmer, gently, for at least another hour slowly adding the rest of the wine.

This will give you a wonderfully rich sauce that's full of flavour.

This recipe for Ragu from Tamasin Day-Lewis takes a bit of beating. [link]

sweat onions, garlic, sprig of thyme or oregano, v finely chopped carrot until very soft.

turn up heat and brown mince in the same pan. Season well.

add plenty of tomato purée and a tin of tomatoes, or passata, and a teaspoon of sugar.

....and then instead of water or beef stock add milk.... yes !! MILK!!

At this point I put mine in the range to slow cook for the rest of the day, but you can put the lid on and finish over a low-ish heat on the hob or put into a slow pot......only thing with the slow pot is the sauce will be much more liquid, and may need reducing on the hob.