BOLOGNESE SAUCE FOR PASTA
1 lb. lean ground beef (80/20--that is, meat that is about 20% fat--is about right)
1 lb. mild Italian pork sausage in bulk (or removed from its casing if you can't get bulk sausage)
olive oil
1 large purple onion
1 or 2 large carrots
2 or 3 ribs of celery
1 cup good dry red wine, like Chianti
1/2 to 1 full 28-oz. can of chopped Italian tomatoes in their juice. (I like Pomi.)
2-1/2 to 3 cups of milk
water to cover
salt and pepper
1. Chop the onion, carrot, celery into small dice. There should be roughly equal amounts of each vegetable, although I usually have a little more onion than anything else. Put about 1/3 cup of olive oil into a very heavy pot, like a cast-iron Dutch oven. Set the heat on medium-high. Add the vegetables, and cook, stirring frequently, until thoroughly browned. Especially as the vegetables begin to brown, don't leave the pot unattended. Don't answer the phone! Ignore that text! This needs your full attention.
2. When the vegetables are brown, dump all the meat into the pot at once. Keep the heat quite high as you break up the meat with a fork. Brown the meat thoroughly. It will get crusty and maybe even stick a bit to the bottom of the pot. Just be sure it doesn't burn (lower the heat a little if you need to). Once it's broken up, you don't need to stir it too much. After it's crusted, you can break it up again and let the other side brown. Again, keep a close eye on this so that it doesn't actually burn. This process of browning the vegetables and meat is likely to take half an hour or more. Be patient. Your effort will be rewarded.
3. When the meat is completely browned, turn up the heat all the way and add the wine. Scrape up any stuck bits from the bottom of the pot as the wine cooks away, which won't take long at all. Once the wine has cooked away, add the tomatoes. (I generally use the smaller amount of tomatoes. This makes a more delicately flavored sauce reminiscent of what we ate in Italy. Americans are used to sauces with more taste of tomato, and if that's what you like, use the whole can. The sauce will be delicious, just stronger in flavor.) Add the milk, which will probably come just below the surface of the meat. Add enough water--probably about 2 cups--to come just a bit over the meat. Stir and bring the sauce to a boil.
4. Turn down the heat and let the sauce cook at a gentle simmer, uncovered, for 4 - 6 hours. (I didn't have that much time at first this week, so I cooked it for about 90 minutes on Thursday, refrigerated it overnight, and cooked it for another 4 hours or so on Friday.) If the sauce gets too dry, add a little hot water, but it should definitely reduce and become creamy--almost the texture of slightly runny oatmeal. Taste the sauce and add salt and pepper if it needs it (this will depend on how much seasoning is in the sausage you used). It's better to salt and pepper this at the end, because the flavors concentrate so much through the long cooking. If you have time, allow this to cool and refrigerate overnight. Like many such things, it will taste better the next day.
5. When you are ready to eat the sauce, cook about 1 lb. of good pasta--we can get some excellent egg pasta in our store. Wide noodles are best, so look for tagliatelle, pappardelle, or something similar. (Even rigatoni will work, and if all else fails, get some fettuccini.) Be sure to cook your pasta al dente. When the pasta is cooked, drain it (don't rinse it), toss it with 1 or 2 tablespoons of softened butter, and then add the sauce. (If the sauce is too thick or too strong, add a little milk, cream, or some cream and some of the hot water from the pasta pot.)
You'll use about half this recipe for a pound of pasta. Serve with plenty of freshly grated parmesan on the side.