"sf" > wrote in message
...
> On Tue, 2 Feb 2010 14:45:34 -0800 (PST), "critters & me in azusa, ca"
> > wrote:
>
>>On Feb 1, 11:45 pm, sf > wrote:
>>> I hadn't made spaghetti in quite a while, it was time to do it.
>>>
>>> Ingredients
>>>
>>> 1.25 lbs. 4% fat ground meat
>>> 1 medium sized onion, chopped
>>> fresh garlic, minced
>>> dried oregano
>>> .5 lb button mushrooms, sliced
>>> 2 14.5 oz. cans Italian style stewed tomatoes
>>> 1 can water
>>>
>>> grated parmesan cheese
>>>
Try Marcella Hazan's sauce Bolognese, from Classic Italian Cooking. The milk
sounds strange at first. Once I followed this recipe I couldn't change.
Sometimes I use a mixture of beef and veal for added richness. Always use
white wine.

Bolognese Meat Sauce

If you can't be with the sauce for the 3 or 4 hours it takes to cook, you
can turn off the heat whenever you need to leave and simply turn it back on
when you resume your watch at the stove, as long as you finish cooking that
same day. This sauce keeps in the refrigerator for 3 days and can be frozen,
too.

1 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 tablespoons butter plus 1 tablespoon for tossing with the pasta
1/2 cup chopped onion
2/3 cup chopped celery
2/3 cup chopped carrot
3/4 pound ground beef chuck, not too lean (or 1/2 pound ground beef chuck
plus ¼ pound ground pork, preferably from the neck or Boston butt)
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 cup whole milk
Whole nutmeg for grating
1 cup dry white wine
1 1/2 cups canned imported Italian plum tomatoes, cut up, with their juice
1 1/4 to 1 1/2 pounds pasta
Freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano at the table

1. Put the oil, butter, and chopped onion in a heavy-bottomed pot and turn
the heat to medium. Cook and stir until the onion is translucent. Add the
celery and carrot and cook for about 2 minutes, stirring to coat the
vegetables with fat.
2. Add the meat, a large pinch of salt, and some freshly ground pepper.
Break the meat up with a fork, stir well, and cook until the meat has lost
its raw color.
3. Add the milk and let it simmer gently, stirring frequently, until it
bubbles away completely (this took quite a while). Stir in about 1/8
teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg.
4. Add the wine and let it simmer away (this took a while, too, but I did
not want to raise the heat and boil the meat hard). When the wine has
evaporated, stir in the tomatoes. (Cooking the meat in milk before adding
the wine and tomatoes protects it from the acidic bite of the latter.) When
they begin to bubble, turn the heat down so that the sauce cooks at the
laziest of simmers, with just an intermittent bubble breaking through to the
surface. Cook, uncovered, for 3 hours (or more-she says more is better),
stirring from time to time. If the sauce begins to dry out, add 1/2 cup of
water whenever necessary to keep it from sticking. At the end, there should
be no water left, and the fat must separate from the sauce. Taste for salt.

Kent
-----
,constantly struggling with my ignorance