I found this recipe just recently on the New York Times Food site; always a good source for great recipes. It intrigued me because I had never heard of a white Bolognese sauce and after reading through the recipe I realized it wasn’t a version of an Alfredo sauce, as I had imagined. No, it was something completely different, something I had never seen before. Oooh, this was something I needed to try and it was immediately saved to my constantly growing collection.
In truth, I usually save recipes and then don’t look at them again. They are there to give me ideas, serve as a “foundation”, but I rarely follow them to a “T”. I’m sure I’m not the only one. This recipe however I felt I needed to follow closely, and with family coming in I knew it was the perfect opportunity to try. After re-reading it over and over I felt a little more comfortable with it and did make some changes. I added a few ingredients, omitted one and I changed one key part of their recipe which I will explain in the directions.
Ingredients
- Extra virgin olive oil
- 1 med. onion, peeled and finely chopped
- 2 stalks celery, finely chopped
- 1 pkg. (4 oz.) diced pancetta
- Sea salt
- Coarse ground pepper
- 1 lb. ground sausage meat, or 1 lb. sausage removed from casings
- 1 lb. ground beef (not lean)
- 1 ½ cups dry Italian white wine
- 3 sprigs fresh oregano
- 2 cups beef broth
- 1 ½ ounces dried porcini mushrooms rehydrated in 3 cups lukewarm water
- ⅓ cup heavy cream
- 1 pound rigatoni
- ¾ cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
In a heavy sauce pan, over med-high heat, add enough olive oil to coat bottom of pan. When it starts to shimmer add in onion and celery. Sauté until translucent than add salt and pepper to sweat out some more. Add pancetta and brown. Mix in both ground meats and brown thoroughly, while breaking up into smaller pieces. Season both meats with some salt and pepper. This step should take 15-20 minutes.
Big Side Note:
-This next step is where I veered from the recipe. If you look at the ingredients, it calls for a fair amount of liquids; the wine, the beef broth and the rehydrated mushroom water. The original recipe has you add each one separately and then simmer down until each one has been cooked down and absorbed completely into the meat mixture. Their directions say to cook down the wine and beef broth until the pan is just about dry. The rehydrated mushroom broth is only partially used and cooked down as well, just enough to “make it loose, but not soupy”. What? I like soupy!!!! I understand that this gives you a very flavorful meat sauce, but where’s the sauce? What am I going to dip my bread in and sop up all the juices? Plus this takes time, and with a house full of family I just didn’t have time for that. What follows is how I did the sauce.-
Add in the wine and oregano sprigs and simmer at a medium heat until wine has cooked down to about half. About 15 minutes. Add in beef broth and do same. As that is simmering, remove mushrooms and chop finely. Add into sauce pan, along with water used to rehydrate mushrooms. As that cooks put a large pot of salted water on stovetop and bring to a boil. Continue cooking until all is heated through and combined (15 mins.) Remove oregano sprigs. Add in cream, mix, cover and remove from heat.
Cook pasta in boiling water until al dente and reserve about 1 cup pasta water. Drain pasta and return to pot, stir in reserved pasta water (see note). Add in some of the glorious sauce you just made and serve with parmesan cheese, good Italian bread and salad. Trust me you’re going to want that bread for the sauce.
*Note on pasta water. This is a really important step, and a trick I learned a few years ago. It redistributes some of the starch back onto the pasta which helps adhere the sauce to the pasta when you add it in. It makes a huge difference.
Also note the pic above was a double recipe and does not include the huge bowl of sauce on the table. I know, I know, should have taken a pic. I’ve learned my lesson.
Since this was my first time making it, I can definitely see adding some fresh spinach to the sauce after adding in the cream. Also my daughter is vegetarian and she sautéed some grape tomatoes and zucchini as her sauce (I reserved some pasta before adding in the meat sauce). I can envision adding some roasted tomatoes to it as well with their little bursts of flavor.
Oh, and the leftovers … oh my goodness!
Jersey Jules 