An Italian Delicacy: Bolognese Sauce

Wine’s Quiet Role in the Taste of Bolognese Sauce

On October 24, 2015, the largest bowl of pasta weighing 7900 kg was cooked in Poland. Forty chefs worked for 19 hours to prepare this pasta dish for over 10,000 people. Spaghetti Bolognese is a savoury pasta dish traditionally made with meat and tomato sauce. It is a classic that is enjoyed by many around the world and has its roots in ancient Greece and Rome.

Traditional Italian Comfort

As a traditional Italian comfort, there are endless variations with every family having their own version of the recipe. While each recipe is different, they all rely on the same fundamental ingredients. The sauce is typically made of celery, carrots, garlic, onions, ground beef, and canned tomatoes, and the pasta made with eggs and flour. Some alternative variations of the dish also use pancetta, mushrooms, and peas.

The original dish was actually produced without spaghetti. The sauce has been around for centuries and is one of the most famous pasta sauces in the world, with many different origin stories. Some trace it back to Naples and Rome. In Italian cuisine, the sauce is named Ragu, a term that originated from the French word Ragout which means meat stewed with vegetables cooked over low flame. It was first brought to Italy by a cook who worked in the royal court of Naples.

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The first evidence of the recipe for the sauce was found in a cookbook by Alberto Alvisi, a cook from Imola—a town near Bologna. His recipe used diced beef, pork, or chicken mixed with lard, onions, cinnamon, black pepper, and tomatoes all cooked together and baked with pasta. The sauce came to Britain and America centuries later, when soldiers stationed in Italy returned to their home countries with the recipe after World War II.

Spaghetti Bolognese

Spaghetti Bolognese, also known as Bolognese sauce, is a simple pasta sauce traditionally made with beef and pork, but can also be made with other meats, such as chicken, veal, or even a combination. One of the reasons the dish is so popular is the red wine that is used in the sauce, which acts as a vital ingredient. Italian wines, like Italian Chianti and Sangiovese, are considered the best wines to use as ingredients in this dish.

Bolognese sauce is known in Italy as Ragù alla Bolognese or simply Ragù.

Interestingly, using wine does not add a special taste or flavour to the sauce but instead just allows the flavour of the other ingredients to be enhanced. When adding wine to Bolognese, it is essential that the sauce is cooked for enough time so that it even reaches the point of being overcooked and the sauce reduces to half and the wine disappears. In order to achieve this, do not cover the pan while the sauce is cooking.