Matteo, our resident Italian in the Back Track office, is a pretty cheerful, easy-going fella, as you probably already know. However, one of Matt’s pet hates is the way Australians constantly seem to ruin authentic Italian food. We don’t drink coffee the right way, pineapple does not belong on pizza, and the Australian take on ragù alla bolognese (or as we call it, spag bol) is certainly not to his liking. So this week, I asked Matteo to send in a recipe for ragù alla bolognese.
This recipe is the official one, registered at the Chamber of Commerce of Bologna on the 17th of October 1982 and Matteo translated it especially. It requires a little more time than a jar of sauce and a packet of beef mince from the supermarket, but while we’ve all got a little more time on our hands, we thought it was perfect.
Time: roughly 4 hours. Serves: 8 people
Ingredients
- Pork mince 500 g
- Beef mince 500 g
- Pancetta (speck) 150 g
- Mortadella 100 g
- Celery 50 g
- Onions 60 g
- Carrots 50 g
- Passata 250 g
- Red wine 200 g
- Water 2 l
- Salt & pepper to taste
Preparation
Peel the celery to take out the stringy part and rinse it. Cut it in half and then in little strips and then into small 1cm cubes. Chop the carrots and onions in the same way.
Same sort of thing for the speck and mortadella but don’t worry too much as you need to pulse them in the blender.
Add some olive oil in a saucepan and add celery, onion, carrot and the meats, and let them golden for about 10 minutes.
At this stage add the pork and beef mince and stir until browning (at least 10 min) as the water in the mince evaporates and the meat dries up, add the wine and keep stirring.
Once the wine has evaporated add the passata and also 1 litre of water (up to 4 – 5 cm from the rim) and leave it to cook, stirring occasionally.
Once the water has evaporated add the same amount of water and once the water has evaporated add salt and pepper as needed.
All done!
And of course, we had to get his take on the perfect accompanying beverage. To go with your ragu alla bolognese, Matt suggests a nice red wine. However, since we like to make cocktails around here, he suggested we include an Aperol Spritz to have for apéritif before dinner.
This recipe comes straight from the experts – Aperol.com
Ingredients
- 60ml Aperol
- 90ml Prosecco
- 30ml Soda Water
- Orange wedge to garnish
Preparation
Pour Aperol, Prosecco and Soda Water into a large wine glass. Fill the wine glass to the top with ice. Garnish with an orange wedge.
Cheers!
