Spaghetti Bolognese

Vorrei spaghetti alla bolognese

Spaghetti growing up for me was always a comfort food. At first I would only eat it plain, because I was a little nuisance. But then I came to my senses and loved having the “red sauce” on my pasta.

So growing up as an Iranian American kid, you don’t really learn that there are different kinds of pasta sauce. All you ever got, unless your Iranian parents were truly foodies or had some Italian in them, was a meat sauce that had ground beef in them and then a mixture of Persian spices, oregan, and basil. The end result? Irano-Italiano Spaghetti Sauce. Or as my brother affectionately calls it, “meat-ghetti.” I honestly thought spaghetti and meatballs was meat-ghetti growing up.

*Iranians love Italian everything, I have an uncle named TONY! Well not by birth, but he made us all call him that. And another fun weird Iranian-Italian cross over, Iranians will use ketchup instead of tomato sauce on a lot of pizzas in Iran. Yeah.

Back to my story.

Why meat-ghetti? Because it’s just a ton of ground beef and tomato sauce! My mom would always put some fun ingredients like turmeric and cumin in her sauce, and even though it wasn’t anything like the restaurants or the jar, it still had that special ingredient. Love.

Our bizarre spaghetti sauce relationship didn’t end there. My brother’s favorite topping for his spaghetti with meat sauce was…you guessed it…sike no you didn’t. Yogurt!

He would just soak his spaghetti in yogurt and then go to town. And to nobody’s surprise both of us became tiny fatsos as we gorged on meat-ghetti.

But after all this time, Mom’s homemade sauce still hits the spot even if it doesn’t taste exactly like the real thing.

So anyways, I never knew what the different kinds of sauces were until I became a grown-up; I finally realized that Mom’s meat-ghetti was really just bolognese sauce. This sauce which originates from the Bologna region of Italy where it took shape in the late 18th century. That timing makes sense, by that point the tomato had become a mainstay of Italian cuisine. In case you didn’t know, the tomato came to Italy in the late 1600’s and it was more of a aesthetic novelty than a foodstuff. 200 years later it was going in sauces.

Bolognese sauce is one of my favorites, it’s fills you up and leaves you in a wonderful post-pasta stupor. I feel like this is the quintessential Italian dish for those Iranians out there who had to eat meat-ghetti growing up.

The recipe I’ve used was inspired by the genius and visionary Kenji of the Food Lab. Basically if you don’t know how to make something, read his articles and you’ll know the best way to make it. Got this idea from Food Lab because they do everything right.

buon appetito!

Recipe – Spaghetti Bolognese

Ingredients

1 quart homemade or store-bought low-sodium chicken stock
1 24 oz. Jar of Tomato Puree (Or you can use Whole Peeled Canned Tomatoes)
2 Tbsp. Tomato Paste
2 Tbsp Olive oil
1 pound ground beef chuck 80/20
1 pound of ground pork
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 Cups of Finely Chopped Onion
1 Cup of Diced Carrots
1 Cup of Diced Celery
2 Tbsp. of Crushed Garlic
1/2 cup minced fresh parsley leaves
2 cups White Wine
2 bay leaves
1 cup heavy cream
3 ounces finely grated Parmesan cheese
1 to 2 tablespoons Vietnamese or Thai fish sauce

Method

First heat your olive oil in a large pot as it begins to shimmer add your chopped onions and garlic. Once they’ve browned, add your celery and carrots.

Add your ground beef and pork to the pot, then add your salt, pepper, and parsley leaves, brown the meat well on each side.

Once you’ve browned it well on each side add your fish sauce to the meat and stir for a few minutes. Now add your white wine to deglaze the pot, stir and allow it to reduce. Once it’s reduce add your tomato ingredients, stirring making sure that the sauce doesn’t burn. Now add your chicken stock to the dish, and allow the dish to simmer for 1 to 2 hours.

Once the sauce has simmered, add your heavy cream and cheese to the sauce, make sure the heat is not too high. Stir gently for another 15 minutes and then serve over fresh pasta!

Enjoy!