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Meat sauce. Bolognese. Ragu.

Whatever you want to call it,  it’s a concoction that involves some kind of animal protein and some veggies stewed together to make a thick, yet still luxurious sauce to accompany pasta, polenta, or crusty bread.

Italian-American food differs from Italian food.  The meat sauce you are most likely familiar with is essentially ground beef and tomatoes with herbs.  That would be the typical “Italian food abroad” type, versus the Italian version which involves the addition of carrots and celery, and cream or milk.  When combined with the onion, the carrots and celery become a soffritto, which is in the same vein as a mirepoix, and even the Cajun holy trinity of onions, bell peppers, and celery.  My rendition of my sauce is closer to the original Italian version.

Meat Sauce

• 1 lb. ground chuck (cheap cuts are the way to go.  DON’T YOU DARE USE GROUND KOBE/WAGYU.  That’s just a waste.  I hate seeing “Kobe burgers.”  It’s an insult to the cow.)
• 1 lb. ground pork (I used a locally made mild sausage.  Check out New York Style Sausage Company)
• 2-3 slices of bacon, pancetta, or pork belly
• 1 onion, diced (I use a medium yellow onion)
• 2 large carrots, diced (If you use organic, no need to peel!)
• 3 ribs celery, diced
• 6 cloves of garlic (why not?)
• 1 28 oz. can of diced tomatoes (I’m a pro-canned tomatoes kind of girl when the are not in season.   I used Trader Joe’s unsalted organic canned tomatoes.)
• 1 6 oz. can of tomato paste
• ~2 cups of beef broth (I used my trusty organic beef Better Than Bouillon.)
• ½ tablespoon or more of generic Italian seasoning (or twice the amount of fresh herbs like oregano, parsley, thyme)
• ¼ cup olive oil
• salt
• pepper
• milk (I eyeballed it until the color was more of an orange than red.)

First, chop up your veggies.  Make sure you chop then rather fine and equally sized.

Chop up your bacon.

Heat your skillet (I used my trusty Dutch oven.) on medium-high heat.  If you’re into it, feel free to drop in your bacon.  As the pan heats, the fat on the bacon will slowly render, and then get hot enough to crisp up your bacon.

When it appears that most of the fat has been rendered, toss in your onions, carrots, and celery.  Give it a stir to coat the pieces and sauté until the onion is translucent.  Season with salt and pepper! Add in your garlic and stir.  Sauté until the garlic is fragrant.  If you have some color on your vegetables, that’s OK.  Brown = flavor.

Next, dump in your meats and cook until no longer pink.  Break up the large chunks as you go.  Don’t forget to season!

Add in the whole can of tomatoes, juice and all, as well as the beef broth.  Bring this to a boil and add in the tomato paste.  Stir to incorporate.  Turn the heat to low and simmer.  This simmer does at least two things: you are slow cooking the meat so it’s more tender; and the vegetables will break down and contribute to a thicker sauce.

I put a lid on mine for the first half of cooking, and then finished it without during the second half to reduce the sauce.  If the texture isn’t to your liking and you are running low on liquid, feel free to add in about a ½ cup at a time to help it along.  Also, when my sauce was looking more like a sauce versus chunks of things in broth, I added milk until it looked on the orange side of the rainbow.  Next time, I think I’m going to use cream to make it richer.

Once the sauce is finished, ladle it on top of freshly cooked pasta, polenta, or thick slabs of Italian bread.  If you must, add copious amount of grated parmesan (you must).