Pasta Bolognese

I’d like to introduce you all, very briefly, to another Conversation. This one comes in the wake of a piece I wrote a while back dealing, broadly, with gay issues. A gentleman, David, submitted a response to the piece, but rather than publish it right away, I thought I’d try and sweet talk him into engaging a little more fully in our Conversation segment. It took him a minute, but he agreed. I think.

“Fine, but let’s do it organically,” he recommends to me, meaning unlike the last conversation I had with Brian about the vaccine, where he and I basically went back and forth for three, uninterrupted rounds.

“I dig it,” I tell David. So, we’ll go back and forth when it feels right. When we feel like engaging. Between other posts. With the specter of world war looming over us as we speak, it’s not like there’s going to be a shortage of other-type pieces any time soon.

I’ll reprint what I wrote last July and David’s response in due time, just not before we pull up a chair for something he graciously and deliciously provided us with.

How’s it go?

Mangia!

(from David)

Sometimes I just don’t feel like cooking. Okay, this is actually most times, especially after a long day at work. Lucky for me, I lived in Rome for a few years and was able to pick up the ability to make some of the classic Italian dishes. They’re neither as complicated, nor as difficult as you might imagine. With this one, we’ll make a tasty dinner with enough left over to last a couple more days.

Honestly this will go much faster and easier if you lay things out ahead of time and do the prep steps before cooking.

Serves 2, with some left for the next couple nights. What you’ll need:

Supplies:

-Large cooking pot, with lid. I recommend a non-stick pot

-Cheese grater and plate

-Cutting board and large sharp knife

-Large plastic stir spoon

-One large serving bowl

Ingredients:

-About 1 pound of 85-90 percent lean ground beef

-1 large jar of your favorite spaghetti sauce. I recommend one with the fewest ingredients. My most recent version of bolognese used a large jar of “100% Organic Strained Tomatoes” from Whole Foods, labeled “Product of Italy”. But honestly, any spaghetti sauce you like will do.

-1-2 large shallots

-Extra virgin olive oil

-1 clove of garlic

-A chilled, dry white wine that you like to drink. (Even though it’s for cooking, you should always cook with a wine that you actually like to drink)

-Fresh! basil – gonna need like 2 sprigs.

-1 box of rigatoni pasta. Believe it or not, Italians designed all those pasta shapes for specific purposes. Rigatoni is designed to hold a bolognese (meat sauce). But any pasta you like will do.

-1 wedge of parmigiana reggiano cheese.

-Peel away the onion skin and cut off both ends of both shallots. On your cutting board, use the big knife and mince both shallots into small pieces – scrape into a bowl and set aside.

-Peel away the onion skin off 1 clove of garlic (or 2, if you like), and mince, scrape into a bowl and set aside.

-You’re going to want to get rid of some of the grease from the beef, and not pour it down the drain. Recommend getting a large bowl, and lining it with some paper towels you can just throw away later.

-Put the pot onto the stove and set just below Medium heat.

-Add the minced shallots. Pour in olive oil to completely coat the shallots. Cook to get these starting to turn slightly brown and soft, Stir frequently.

-Once the shallots begin to turn slightly brown, add the minced garlic.

-Cook for about another minute or two, stirring occasionally.

-Add about 1 cup of dry white wine. The alcohol in the wine will steam off. Stir for about a minute.

-Now begin to add the ground beef. Grab a handful, and crumble it into the pot. Keep going till it’s all in the pot.

-Keep the heat at just below Medium. Stir the ground beef, breaking it up. It will ‘brown’ in about 5 minutes of stirring.

-Turn off heat. Spoon out some of the grease, or hold your lid over the pot and carefully pour the grease out into the bowl you lined with paper towels. If this is a large pot, it may be too awkward to do this step. You don’t have to do this step if you don’t want to.

-Return to the pot to the stove and put it back on just below Medium heat.

-Add the jar of sauce.

-Fill that jar with about 3/4 water, and swirl to include any remaining sauce – pour all this into the pot.

-Take a sprig of basil, rinse under cold water and add to the pot, stirring it in.

-Put the lid on, but not all the way – let some of the steam escape since the idea is to cook off a lot of this liquid. Set heat to Medium Low. It will be bubbling, but not raging boiling.

-Cook for about 1 hour, stirring occasionally (keeping the lid cracked), till it’s the desired thickness.

-While this is cooking, grate the cheese onto a plate.

Once the sauce is at your desired thickness, you can turn the heat off, stir and put the lid on all the way. Boil your pasta. Enough for at least 2 people so maybe you have some left. Put the cooked pasta into a large serving bowl. Spoon in the sauce. Sprinkle with the fresh cheese. Add a leaf of basil on top.