Comments on: Ragu alla Bolognese

By: Deb in Indiana

Deb in Indiana — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 16:37:30 +0000

Kay, back again for this wonderful recipe. Today’s tweak is to have added about 1/2 pound of mushrooms with the veggies. I am serving it today with fresh pasta, but I love it as part of a lasagna.
I read through the comments on the thickness of the sauce, and I have to say that I think it is just right. I’m pretty generous in adding the veggies, though, so maybe that helps thicken it up a bit.
Here are a couple of nits from a professional nit-picker:
–recipe card says “fres basil” rather than “fresh basil”
–recipe card says “350F (160C)” whereas page itself says “300F (160C)”. As an ignorant American, I don’t know which is consistent with 160C and don’t think it much matters to the resulting delicious sauce.
These are very unimportant typos and it has taken me about 2 years to notice them, so you should feel free to ignore my pointing them out.
Thanks again for your lovely site — it’s one of my very favorites, and I visit it often for inspiration.

By: Elisabed

Elisabed — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 12:04:59 +0000

Dag Kay,

De pan is bijna te klein ! en staat te pruttelen.
Ruikt en smaakt nu al lekker.
Nog verse rozemarijn en tijm erbij gedaan om er straks uit te vissen.
Inderdaad genoeg voor twee-drie porties.

Thx again.

Groet,

By: Tapani

Tapani — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 15:01:52 +0000

BTW, a recipe close enough to authentic can be found here:

http://culinariaitalia.wordpress.com/2008/06/29/ragu-alla-bolognese-authentic-recipe/

It also calls for adding more milk in case the sauce is getting too thick. The taste of dairy products is really essential in Ragù. However, I still don’t like to watch the sauce over a stove top like a hawk for several hours… so once again, thanks a million for this recipe, Kay!

By: Tapani

Tapani — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 14:52:09 +0000

First of all, thanks for a great recipe and the wonderful illustrations, Kay! I’ve made this many times over during the past year and a half, since I’ve been too lazy to stir the Ragù on a stove top for hours and hours. The previous recipes I used were from several different authentic Bolognans (who have lived here in Finland, my friends as well as past and present colleagues).
However, I tend to disagree about reducing the milk (and to a lesser extent, adding flour) to thicken the sauce. After all, the key differentiators here are the flavors of Béchamel sauce (accomplished by the addition of milk and nutmeg.) and a cooking process that appeals to Le Creuset owners and resembles braising (with the addition of broth and wine).
The authentic Ragù recipes I’ve used call for triple or double concentrated tomato puree only for a subtle taste of tomato. I find the cubed tomatoes in this recipe to be rather redundant, and an unnecessary source of liquid making the Ragù watery as pointed out by a couple of commentators on this blog.
The desired result is better achieved by adding a bit more tomato puree (to taste) instead of the watery cubed tomatoes. However, I personally like to accentuate the Béchamel sauce-like flavor. I’ve even substituted moderate amounts of milk with cream to keep the consistency thick enough without flour. Flour just does not belong to any great sauce in my opinion.
Kind Regards from a fellow recipe tweaker,
–
Tapani

By: Kay

Kay — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 09:54:12 +0000

@Niamh: I agree. If this would have been my recipe, I would have added 1 cup of milk instead of 2 and I would have added some flour.

By: Niamh

Niamh — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 09:50:15 +0000

Made this recipe recently. Very tasty but too watery, only used one cup of milk and two and half cups of broth. Did add a tablespoon of flour when frying onions. Think the canned tomatoes add a fair bit of fluid to the dish so next time ill add maybe just one cup of broth and see how that works out.

By: Sara

Sara — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 05:27:35 +0000

Wow this is incredibly documented, thank you :)

By: Cook44

Cook44 — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 08:10:44 +0000

This looks nice. I would like to taste it, it could be an interesting alternative ragù

By: Jeannie

Jeannie — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 17:17:09 +0000

This is the absolute best bolognese that I have ever had. I have made a couple other recipes from your site and everything is just amazing. I love your website – it’s beautiful and I really enjoy all the personal content. Keep up the great work and thank you very much!!
Cheers from Ontario Canada!

By: Kim

Kim — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 13:27:36 +0000

Hello,
I just Stumbled upon this site and I will try this recipe for dinner tonite. I love the fact that you use fresh herb, because my kitchen window is full of them. Thank you for sharing.