Marcella Hazan’s Bolognese Sauce

This is from the New York Times cooking site and the recipe comes from Marcella Hazan, who apparently gets the credit for changing how Americans cook Italian food. This is decent, definitely tasty. I added 2 or 3 Tb. of Wondera to thicken it (I like a thicker sauce) and the few hours of simmering really adds the flavor in. I'd add more nutmeg and maybe a slight bit more wine. I paired this with a green salad and it was great. Garlic bread would have been good, too.

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 3 tablespoons butter plus 1 tablespoon for tossing the pasta
• ½ cup chopped onion
• ⅔ cup chopped celery
• ⅔ cup chopped carrot
• ¾ pound ground beef chuck (or you can use 1 part pork to 2 parts beef)
• Salt
• Black pepper, ground fresh from the mill
• 1 cup whole milk
• Whole nutmeg
• 1 cup dry white wine
• 1 ½ cups canned imported Italian plum tomatoes, cut up, with their juice
• 1 ¼ to 1 ½ pounds pasta
• Freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese at the table

Put the oil, butter and chopped onion in the pot and turn the heat on to medium. Cook and stir the onion until it has become translucent, then add the chopped celery and carrot. Cook for about 2 minutes, stirring vegetables to coat them well.

Add ground beef, a large pinch of salt and a few grindings of pepper. Crumble the meat with a fork, stir well and cook until the beef has lost its raw, red color. 

Add milk and let it simmer gently, stirring frequently, until it has bubbled away completely. Add a tiny grating -- about 1/8 teaspoon -- of nutmeg, and stir. 

Add the wine, let it simmer until it has evaporated, then add the tomatoes and stir thoroughly to coat all ingredients well. When the tomatoes 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, stirring from time to time. While the sauce is cooking, you are likely to find that it begins to dry out and the fat separates from the meat. To keep it from sticking, add 1/2 cup of water whenever necessary. At the end, however, no water at all must be left and the fat must separate from the sauce. Taste and correct for salt. 

Toss with cooked drained pasta, adding the tablespoon of butter, and serve with freshly grated Parmesan on the side.