- [Host] This episode
of "Basics with Babish" is sponsored by Bright
Cellars, a monthly wine club that matches you with
fine wine you'll love and delivers it right to your door. Bright Cellars is offering you 50% off your first six-bottle box, so follow the link in
the video description to take the seven-question
Taste Pallet Quiz and get started. I'm actually glad I have a
little extra wine on hand, because I'll need it to prepare and enjoy alongside today's topic, bolognese sauce. Let's get down to basics. (happy, upbeat music) (gentle music) All right, so this might not be the most basic way to start things off, but great recipes often begin
with great chicken stock, and in a recipe like bolognese, where every single ingredient matters, if you have the time, energy,
and emotional latitude, it behooves you to make
your own chicken stock. My favorite way as of late is to roast a whole mess of chicken
wings, about three pounds, in a 400-degree Fahrenheit
oven until deeply browned. Combine in a pot with
celery, carrots, onion, a turnip or two, maybe a knob of ginger, a whole halved head of garlic, and whatever other stuff you like, like fennel fronds and
parsnips and black peppercorns. Bring it just shy of a simmer,
about 205 degrees Fahrenheit, and let it go for at least four
hours, and ideally up to 24. You're only gonna use
about a quart of this stuff in your bolognese recipe, but the rest of it is liquid gold. Simply portion, freeze, and profit. Once you have this very optional but very rewarding step out of the way, it's time to get into
making bolognese in earnest. First up, as many great recipes do, this one begins with mirepoix, or as the Italians call it, sofrito, that is, one large finely
minced yellow onion, two medium carrots peeled
and finely chopped, and three ribs of celery
similarly finely chopped. Set that aside because now it's time to contend with the meats. Traditional bolognese
calls for beef and pork, a pound of which of each we're going to brown
off in some olive oil. But to increase the meaty,
savory mineral notes, I like to take a page out
of J. Kenji López-Alt's book and also add a pound of ground lamb. A trio that we're going
to brown over medium heat until browned, about
three to five minutes, before removing by virtue
of a slotted spoon, because, as you might imagine, we want to reserve all
this beautiful rendered fat so we can cook our vegetables in it. Once our meat is out the way,
it's time to add our onions and sauté for two to three minutes until beginning to turn
translucent around the edges and getting nice and soft. But first we're gonna scoop
out said onions because, even though we're the host
of our own cooking show, we totally forgot a step. Half a pound of thick-cut pancetta, which we're first going
to render the fat out of and get nice and crispy and browned. But then we're gonna notice that our beautiful fond
on the bottom of the pot is starting to burn, so
we're gonna remove the pork. Whose idea was it to
give me a cooking show? Mine? That sounds about right. Anyway, back to square one, we're gonna continue sautéing our onions along with our carrot and celery while our pancetta browns
up and renders out its fat in a separate sauté pan. Once the vegetables are soft
and the pancetta is crisp, we're gonna dump it
straight in, fat and all, as this is going to bring a lot of great flavor to the party. Next up, our tomato element, which is just a quarter
cup of tomato paste. Most Americans think that
bolognese is a tomato sauce, which it is not. While tomato paste brings
a lot of tomato flavor, it's primarily a meat,
wine, and stock sauce, which, after the tomato paste has had about two minutes to caramelize, we're gonna add to the hot tub. One cup of dry white wine,
like Sauvignon Blanc, scraping up all the good stuff
off the bottom of the pot. Then we're gonna let it
simmer for about five minutes, or until the wine is
almost fully evaporated and it smells like God's morning breath. Add back our browned meats, give it a stir just so everybody gets to know everybody, and then it's time to start ladling in our ideally homemade, but
totally fine if store bought, chicken stock, about 32 ounces worth, but your mileage may vary, we want just enough that
everybody is submerged. Then we're topping that up
with one cup of whole milk, a bay leaf or two, a couple
Parmesan cheese rinds if you have them lying around the house, and the most traditional ingredient, a generous grating of
freshly grated nutmeg. And then you can simmer
it on the stovetop, but I like to put it in a
300-degree Fahrenheit oven for three to four hours, plenty of time to make the
all-important fresh pasta. Bolognese is most commonly served with an almost-too-wide-for-your-mouth
pappardelle, so that's what we're gonna make out of an indiscriminate
mountain of all-purpose flour. Dig a well in the center,
crack in four eggs, give it a little sprinkle of kosher salt, and start beating with
a fork into a slurry, grabbing handfuls from the
foothills of Mount Flour and tossing them into the center as you beat it with the fork. The slurry growing ever thicker until you can beat it no more, and you must start gently
coaxing it together with a bench scraper like this one, and then your hands into a very
wet, very soft ball of dough which we must begin to knead
for maybe five to seven minutes until it becomes soft
and cohesive and bouncy, and gently springs back
when poked with a finger. Then we're wrapping it in plastic wrap and letting it rest at room
temperature for about 30 minutes before beginning to roll out. Come rolling time, we're
going to unwrap our dough and cut it into four pieces, which we're gonna keep
wrapped in the plastic wrap so they do not dry out, while we bust out our pasta
cheat machine, the stand mixer. And to help better develop our
dough's gluten development, we're going to laminate it, that is, roll it out a little bit by hand, pass it through our roller
on its widest setting, fold it into thirds like a pamphlet, roll it out a little bit again,
and pass it back through. Depending on how much you hand kneaded it, you might want to repeat this
process up to three times before starting to pass it
through your pasta roller one notch at a time thinner and thinner, until you have a nice,
long, thin sheet of pasta. Once you get to about notch number four, you might need to cut your sheet in half so you can get it all the way down to zero or its thinnest possible
setting, at which point we'll begin cutting our
pasta into pappardelle. The idea here is that
you wanna fold the pasta onto itself accordion style without any of the folds overlapping, so they don't crease as much when cut and we don't end up with kinky pasta. Then we are simply slicing lengthwise into about half-inch wide strips, and making sure that each strip is generously coated in flour before twisting into nests and placing on a rimmed baking sheet that has been well dusted with flour. Then all there is left to do is rinse and repeat with
the remaining pasta, a process which, like chicken stock, is labor intensive, but worth the effort. Once all the pasta is rolled, it's time to begin final assembly. Our sauce is out the oven
and looking pretty crazy, but it's gonna be really awesome. First, we're gonna skim off
as much of the fat as we can, remove the bay leaf, and
start tasting for seasoning. This thing is going to need
generous doses of the following: freshly grated Parmesan cheese, heaping pinches of kosher salt, and plenty o' twists of
freshly ground black pepper. And for a little optional added richness, about half a cup of heavy cream. Stir it until everybody's combined and emulsified and rich
and creamy and awesome. One last taste to make sure
that it's seasoned properly, and because your instinct might be to just eat this with a spoon, before it's time to start
assembling our pasta. As you may know, I'm an advocate for finishing cooking pasta in the sauce. So even though our fresh pasta only needs about 60 seconds of cook time, we're gonna cook it for about
45 seconds, pull it out, and drop it into an awaiting
sauté pan full of our sauce, along with about a quarter
cup of pasta cooking water, which we're gonna toss
together over medium-low heat until some of the sauce is absorbed, the sauce is emulsified, and
the pasta is fully cooked. Then we're optionally
twisting using a carving fork into a nest into our intended bowl, which, this pappardelle is so wide that that didn't really actually work, so maybe just dump some into a bowl. Top with a little bit of extra sauce and an unreasonable amount of freshly grated Parmesan cheese. And there you have it, what
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say, publicly on the internet, is a very legitimate bolognese sauce. I'm looking forward to the
panel of four Italian experts telling me exactly why I'm wrong. But one thing that they cannot tell me is that this isn't amazing. It is meaty, it is saucy, it is unctuous, and it's entirely made from scratch. And it's all the better
being made with and enjoyed alongside some wine from
today's sponsor, Bright Cellars, a service that selects wine just for you from all around the world and delivers it right to your door. This service is only
for adults 21 and older. The folks at Bright Cellars take pride in educating their club members, so each box comes with a wine
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to leave the house, go to a store, and rely on your own wits to pick out a wine that suits your taste. Bright Cellars does it all for you. All you have to do is enjoy. With today's bolognese, I am enjoying this Cabernet
Sauvignon from Obscura. It's spicy, fruit forward boldness makes it a perfect pairing for
such a rich, unctuous dish. Bright Cellars is offering you 50% off your first six-bottle box, so be sure to follow the link
in the video description below to take the Taste Palette
Quiz and get started. (gentle music)
Italians get Babish shook every time, this final product looks delicious though!
Babish this episode: Italians don't @ me.
Is there a single video he puts up that doesn’t involve “taking a page out of J Kenji Lopez Alt”? Dude needs to be paid royalties at this point...
If you've never made a homemade bolognese, it's definitely worth giving a shot sometime. Stuff is freaking awesome, and you'll wonder how you ever managed to eat the old generic ground beef mixed with jarred spaghetti sauce.
Babish: Top with an unreasonable amount of parmesan cheese
Me: No such thing
While watching from the beginning I left a comment saying 'Thank you for not taking a page out of J Kenji Lopez-Alt's book and pronouncing it 'Bolo-naysay' and then 20 seconds after I click send Rea says 'I'm going to take a page out of J Kenji Lopez Alt's book' in the video.
imma bit shook right now ngl
mfw I literally made bolognese before seeing this
Goddamn it, Babish
Just put my Bolognese in the oven, will check back in in roughly 4 hours.
is it pronounced bolognese or bolognese.