{"id":351,"date":"2011-11-07T18:13:36","date_gmt":"2011-11-07T18:13:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ginnyang.com\/?p=351"},"modified":"2012-12-13T16:41:52","modified_gmt":"2012-12-13T16:41:52","slug":"pappardelle-alla-bolognese","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/?p=351","title":{"rendered":"Pappardelle alla Bolognese"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Spagbol” it has to be one of my most loathed terms.\u00a0 It represents all that is wrong with British-Italian cooking.\u00a0 Spaghetti with a bolognese\u00a0sauce?\u00a0 Every time you tell an Italian to try the spaghetti bolognese, they will look at you like you are some kind of freak.\u00a0 Spaghetti just doesn’t pick up a lot of meat sauce, it works for a marinara\u00a0sauce but not for a meat based sauce.\u00a0 If you are making bolognese\u00a0it should be paired with tagliatelle, fettucini\u00a0or pappardelle\u00a0(or similar).\u00a0 For me, “Spagbol” drags up memories of lazy cooking, it sounds lazy and the end product is usually awful.\u00a0 All I can think of is overcooked, tasteless spaghetti with this off colour mince with all the texture of a mouth full of grit.\u00a0 I feel like it’s my duty to right\u00a0this terrible wrong and hopefully save at least one person from this horrible fate of weekly bowls of god-awful “Spagbol”.<\/p>\n

To start with, we will be doing away with the spaghetti (if you hadn’t guessed already).\u00a0 Just to be radical this recipe will also do away with mince… yes that’s right, ditch the mince!\u00a0 Instead there is a choice of two cuts of beef, shin or skirt.\u00a0 In this instance, I’m going with shin but they’re fairly interchangeable for this recipe.\u00a0 There are a couple of reasons for ditching mince.\u00a0 Firstly, I find using mince in bolognese can give the whole dish a very gritty texture, you might like that mouthful of sand but not too many others will thank you for it.\u00a0 Second, taste.\u00a0 Mince tends to be the cheapest, nasty bit of beef that can be recovered from the carcass.\u00a0 By choosing to use shin or skirt, you are still getting a cheap piece of meat but you know it’s good quality and full of flavour.\u00a0 Lastly, the chunks of meat cook better.\u00a0 Because this is a long, slow cooked recipe all the meat will be falling apart with the fat melting through the whole dish.\u00a0 If you try to cook thin bits of mince for that long, it soon becomes dry and hard.<\/p>\n

If you’ve seen Heston Blumenthal’s perfect spaghetti bolognese\u00a0then you will have a fair idea of what is in this recipe, but this is much simpler.\u00a0 I’ve seen a couple of chefs do things very similar things, Jamie Oliver cooked his meat in a pressure cooker to speed things up (an excellent idea).\u00a0 Everyone seems to have a slightly different way of preparing the ragu\u00a0and each has their own unique taste.\u00a0 So if you want to introduce some additional ingredients, feel free!\u00a0 The recipe can easily be adapted to your tastes.\u00a0 I would keep the star anise in, as it\u00a0really adds flavour to the dish.\u00a0 However you choose to do this recipe, try to keep the\u00a0soffritto\u00a0(carrots, onions and celery) in roughly equal proportions,\u00a0but a little extra onion doesn’t hurt.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ingredients (Serves 6-8)<\/strong><\/p>\n

750g Beef Shin \/ Skirt<\/p>\n

500ml Beef Stock<\/p>\n

500g Dry Pappardelle Pasta<\/p>\n

10-12 Medium tomatoes (large cherry or plum tomatoes)<\/p>\n

3 Carrots<\/p>\n

6\u00a0Ribs of Celery<\/p>\n

1-2 Large Onion(s)<\/p>\n

6 Cloves of garlic<\/p>\n

3\u00a0Star Anise<\/p>\n

1 Tbsp Tomato Concentrate<\/p>\n

Handful of fresh basil<\/p>\n

Olive Oil<\/p>\n

Pecorino for sprinkling<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Method<\/strong><\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 Start by cutting up the beef into chunks.\u00a0 Dice the carrots, celery and onions.\u00a0 Crush and roughly chop the garlic and finally cut the tomatoes into quarters.\u00a0 Pre-heat your oven to 175C.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 In a large casserole dish heat three tablespoons of Olive oil.\u00a0 Once up to heat add in the beef\u00a0and lightly brown it, season with salt and pepper.\u00a0 Add in the garlic about half way through browning.\u00a0 Remove the beef and garlic with a slotted spoon and reserve.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 Add another one or two tablespoons of olive oil to the pot then throw in the diced onions, carrots and celery.\u00a0 Season with a little salt and pepper and fry until they have started to soften.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0 Add the stock to the soffritto then return all the beef and garlic to the pot and bring the mix to a simmer.<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0 Add the tomatoes, the tomato\u00a0concentrate, star anise\u00a0and the basil\u00a0to the pot, stir and allow to simmer for 10-15mins.<\/p>\n

6.\u00a0 Cover the pot and place it in the oven for at least 4 hours.\u00a0 Alternatively you can heat the whole pot overnight (8 hours) at 150C.<\/p>\n

7.\u00a0 When you remove the pot from the oven give it a stir.\u00a0 If the meat flakes and the soffritto\u00a0has all combined when stirred with a fork it is ready.\u00a0 At this point your ragu can be kept in the fridge for a\u00a0day or two\u00a0until you are ready to use it.<\/p>\n

8.\u00a0 On the day, heat a large pan of salted water.\u00a0 Once it is boiling add in the pappardellle pasta and cook until al dente.<\/p>\n

9.\u00a0 While the pasta is being cooked, reduce the ragu\u00a0on a medium-high heat.\u00a0 You want to remove most of the stock\u00a0water from the ragu, so when you stir the meat you get a thin gravy like sauce.\u00a0 Check for seasoning and remove the star anise.<\/p>\n

10.\u00a0 Drain the pasta\u00a0and drizzle with some extra virgin olive oil to prevent it sticking.\u00a0 Plate the pasta by twisting it around a fork and on to the plate, then spoon over the bolognese.\u00a0 Finish with some grated Pecorino cheese on top but mix it all before eating to let the sauce coat the pasta!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tips:<\/strong><\/p>\n

When reducing the ragu, keep stirring it or it will burn.<\/p>\n

Place the star anise in muslin cloth to keep them from breaking apart into the rest of the bolognese, it also makes it easier to fish them out at the end.<\/p>\n

You can add a few more herbs if you wish, thyme, oregano or marjoram all work well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Spagbol” it has to be one of my most loathed terms.\u00a0 It represents all that is wrong with British-Italian cooking.\u00a0 Spaghetti with a bolognese\u00a0sauce?\u00a0 Every time you tell an Italian to try the spaghetti bolognese, they will look at you like you are some kind of freak.\u00a0 Spaghetti just doesn’t pick up a lot of meat sauce, it works for a marinara\u00a0sauce but not for a meat based sauce.\u00a0 If you are making bolognese\u00a0it should[…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":354,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[37,5,19],"tags":[10,8,7],"class_list":["post-351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-main","category-recipes","category-west","tag-beef","tag-cheese","tag-pasta"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/IMAG0359.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1PTCG-5F","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=351"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":821,"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351\/revisions\/821"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ginnyang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}