Emilia Romagna Grand Prix: Sunday Sauce Ragu

Welcome to Grand Prix Gastronomy! This week, I’m cooking ragu with pappardelle — the perfect Sunday sauce from Emilia Romagna.

May 18, 2023

This project is pretty simple. As a complement to each race weekend, I’ll be cooking the national dish of that race’s host country and sharing information about the process and that dish’s history along the way in an effort to grow more deeply immersed in the local culture from my own home.

Thanks for reading Grand Prix Gastronomy! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

What Is Ragu alla Bolognese?

Ragù alla Bolognese, or Bolognese sauce, is a ragù-style meat sauce cooked in the regional style of Bologna. The main distinction here is the lack of garlic in the sauce, along with a much lesser amount of tomatoes and the inclusion of some milk or cream. Traditionally, you'd serve this sauce with tagliatelle or polenta, but I couldn't find tagliatelle at the store. I did manage to nab pappardelle, which is a thicker noodle characteristic of a different region of Italy.

I've been reading a lot about wine lately, and one of the fascinating things I've been learning is that Italy as we know it today is a fairly recent invention; before, the country was just a smattering of different states that had all developed their own cultures, cuisines, and crops — like wine grapes. (I'm sure this isn't news to you if you grew up with any sort of respectable education system, but in rural America, we really didn't, uh, talk about any of this. We mostly just talked about the Civil War every single year until I graduated. I also distinctly recall, as of 2007, our maps still labeling the USSR.) So, in the spirit of regionalism, I tried to find a recipe reminiscent of the Emilia-Romagna region; with the exception of my pasta choice, I kinda mostly got there.

This Week's Recipe

I ran through a few different recipes before settling on one from Living a Life in Colour. This food blog may be a little less heavy on the narrative when compared to other sites I’ll pull from this year, but it was founded by a Canadian who married an Italian and has lived in various countries around the world. She puts a lot of effort and research into sourcing recipes, so I felt confident I’d be getting something delicious.

That being said, I want to note a few things. The recipe author notes that using minced or ground meat is a regular shortcut — definitely avoid that if you let the sauce simmer for a while. Grab some lean beef and chop it yourself, even in a food processor. Further, this recipe calls for chicken livers. I couldn’t find any at my local grocery store, but I swapped in chicken hearts instead, per a recommendation from my mom. I was deeply skeptical of the organ meat because I just don’t come from a tradition of cooking that, but my mom’s stories of growing up in a farm family eating favorites like pig’s feet, cow tongue, and chicken hearts steeled me to know I was capable of doing it. I’ll talk more about cooking with the hearts later — just know it actually is worthwhile! And I promise that you’re not even going to know it’s there, since the amount is so small, you’re going to mince it up into itty bitty pieces, and you’re going to cook it right down so that you’ll never actually take a bite and be able to tell exactly what piece of meat is in your mouth.

I love a good Sunday sauce because it means I have time to spend on other kitchen goodies. For my Emilia Romagna menu, I also added focaccia crescente and a super simple arugula salad. It was my first time making bread with a European recipe that measures ingredients by weight, and it was… interesting.

Cooking Ragu alla Bolognese

The main thing to know about ragu is that it can take a whoooole long time, especially if you're determined to let it simmer on the stove for as long as you can. The recipe I chose says it takes about four hours, which is what I'd recommend if you're cooking the meal with ground beef as your beef selection; something fattier would be able to stand up to the constant heat much better than the ground beef I chose. Let my failure of this one simple rule serve as your reminder: always read the recipe in full detail before you craft your shopping list!

The preparation of this dish is going to take you a while, so I did all my chopping the day before I wanted to make the sauce. When I do this, I normally store my ingredients in reusable ziplock bags or tupperware, and I store them in steps. So, for example, I stored my chopped veggies with my pancetta, since you cook them all together. I also stored my beef and prosciutto together for the same reason. It makes it a lot easier to then pull a bag or container from the fridge and dump it into the pot.

You're going to sauté a finely chopped onion, carrot, and celery rib with some pancetta, then add in the beef and prosciutto to cook until the mixture starts to look cohesive. Add the wine and let it cook down until about 2/3 of it has evaporated — then add in your tomato, salt, and pepper, stir it up, and let it simmer.

From here, it's mostly just a waiting game. You'll turn your stove down to low and let the pot simmer as you get up to your Sunday tasks — in my case, baking bread, cleaning, and watching race car.

You do want to keep a fairly close eye on your sauce, though; I checked on mine about every 30 minutes and found that I needed to keep adding a little bit of broth to keep it juicy. Do not be like me and take an hour-long nap, then wake up to find you have a burnt crust of sauce on the bottom of your pan. It wasn't burned enough to ruin the dish, thankfully, but I felt like a dumbass for even letting it happen!

As my pot of sauce simmered away on the stove, I discovered another issue: it was really oily. Like, really oily. Like, “I think I screwed up somewhere” oily. The grease had puddled on top of the sauce in a fairly thick layer; if it had just been a little bit of oil, I'd be fine, but it was a lot. You could probably sop it all up with paper towels, but I was trying not to be wasteful, so I did the ol’ “ice cubes in the ladle” hack until I reached what appeared to be a reasonable (and delicious) amount of grease on top.

When you're getting ready to finish up the food, you'll add the chicken livers and some milk or cream, then let it continue to simmer on the stove for another hour or so. Taste it and see if you need any salt and pepper, then serve the sauce with your noodles. I know some people like to spoon sauce on top of a bowl of noodles; I actually like to finish cooking my noodles in my sauce, which worked out great.

I served my ragu with sangiovese wine, which is really acidic. That acidity helps it stand up to really highly spiced or rich foods and tomato sauce. Sure, there's not a ton of tomato sauce in ragu alla bolognese, but the wine did help punch through the richness of the dish with an almost balsamic-y acidity on your tongue. I bought a super cheap sangiovese and admittedly didn't really enjoy the wine on its own — so I'll have to give it another shot with a wine that happens to be a smidge nicer.

I also whipped up a super quick arugula salad that quite literally involved throwing arugula in a bowl and drizzling olive oil and freshly squeezed lime juice on it, throwing in parmesan, and sprinkling it all with a dash of salt and pepper. It's basic, but the bitter arugula was a nice, fresh complement to the ragu.

Finally, I cooked a focaccia crescente, which is typical of the Bologna region. I had an absolute time of it. This was the first time I'd baked anything that measured its ingredients by weight, and as I was adding my flour, I was looking at my brand new kitchen scale from an odd angle and didn't realize it featured a decimal place. So, when I hit 50.0 grams of flour, I thought I'd matched the recipe. I did not. When I added that meager smidge of flour to my yeast mix, I ended up with a soup. I mixed in a little bit of flour at a time until I reached the texture I thought I needed — and it ended up turning out great! By far my most successful yeasted creation yet. I guess I just need to screw up, and things will be fine!

So, What's the Verdict?

I was surprised to find myself of two minds about ragu alla bolognese! I thought for sure that pasta would be an easy-peasy, guaranteed delicious meal — and I do think it would have been better if I’d read the recipe before I cooked it.

The recipe calls for finely diced lean beef. My brain interpreted that as ground beef. My highly processed option, though, lost all of its moisture during the long simmering process and ended up dry and almost a little gritty as opposed to melting down into the sauce the way I think it would have if I'd have diced up a hunk of beef — especially since I let it simmer for about seven hours. If you try this out with a hunk of beef you dice up at home, let me know how it turns out!

And while I know this is more “meat” sauce than “tomato” sauce, I think the richness of the ragu needed a little something extra to give it a kick — but I couldn't figure out what, exactly. I think a little bit of acid would have gone a long way to round out and brighten up the sauce, but I didn't add any because the recipe didn't call for it. I also don't think anything was wrong or bad, per se. I just don't think it vibed with me.

This is definitely a dish I'd cook again, but I would come at it from a different approach than I did this time around in order to make it a better fit for my palate.

That being said, I was really freakin’ stoked that the focaccia came out as well as it did. I guess there can be only one success in a meal!

Let's Chat: Imola Is Canceled

If you haven't already, please consider donating to relief funds dedicated to helping those impacted by the historic flooding in Northern Italy. The images coming out of the region are horrifying; stopping the race was the right call, but the region is going to require so much more work before its residents are able to regain a sense of normalcy.

I do, though, want to thank everyone who participated in cooking along with me for the Miami Grand Prix! I was legit blown away by how many of y’all turned out and sent me photos of your frankly fantastic looking dishes.