Bolognese Sauce with Milk
Description: Bolognese sauce recipe with a secret ingredient: milk! Milk tenderizes the meat and balances the acidity of the wine and tomatoes. This recipe emphasizes slow cooking in the oven and using quality ingredients like tomato passata from a top brand. Avoids rosemary and thyme as they can be overpowering.
Ingredients
- 2 stalks celery
- 1 onion
- 1 large carrot
- 3 cloves garlic
- 2 cloves garlic (for stewing)
- 1 clove garlic (grated, for finishing)
- 400g ground meat (beef or mixed)
- 5 strips smoked bacon
- 30ml olive oil
- 1 can tomato paste
- 1 bottle passata
- 1 glass red wine
- 1/2 beef bouillon cube
- 150ml whole milk
- Pepper
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 150 degrees Celsius.
- Process celery, onion, carrot, and 2 cloves of garlic in a food processor until finely ground.
- Finely chop the bacon.
- In a large pot, add olive oil and cook the bacon and ground meat until nicely browned. Remove meat and bacon from the pot.
- Add the processed vegetables to the pot and stew over medium heat for a long time.
- Return the meat and bacon to the pot. Add the tomato paste and cook for 5 minutes, stirring.
- Add the red wine and let it reduce for 5 minutes.
- Add the milk, passata, bouillon cube, and a little water (use the water to rinse out the passata bottle).
- Cover the pot and cook in the oven for almost 3 hours.
- Turn off the oven and let the sauce rest for a while.
- At the end, add the finely grated clove of garlic and season with pepper.