I've mentioned before that I am less excited about TJOC recipes for which I already have a terrific standby on hand. Bolognese sauce (p. 564) is one of these recipes. I have an AWESOME Bolognese sauce recipe already and I feel no need for another. And I LOVE Bolognese sauce--I ate as much as possible when I was in Italy.
But, cookthrough bloggers can't be choosers.
The recipe started promisingly--render bacon in some olive oil.
It seemed like an awful lot of oil but what do I know?
Next step, I added minced carrot, celery, and onion (there have been plenty PLENTY of pictures of this step on TJOTJOC already). I then added some ground beef and stirred in a little chicken stock, white whine, and tomato paste.
I'll be honest, I didn't like the looks of this sauce. I know Bolognese sauce is a far less tomato-y sauce than most but this particular sauce was really pushing it for me. Plus, it only had beef in it! My sauce always has a beef/pork/veal mixture. But I slowly added a cup and a half of milk, like the recipe required.
It cooked for about two hours. This is not the recipe to make if you want something to eat quickly--the sauce took at least three hours and then requireed time to cool.
How was it? To be honest, I thought it was gross. Way too much beef and it had a weird fatty flavor/texture. My Bolognese sauce is way better--way way better. I won't be making this recipe again. I don't have that many other stock recipes (I've made the bread pudding, lasagna, chocolate chip cookies, and meat sauce recipes already with varied results) but I've been dreading rice pudding. I LOVE my rice pudding recipe--it is absolutely amazing. I should probably just make it and get it out of the way. Do you have any stock recipes? Do you stick to it or try new versions?
I bet it was fatty and weird because of all that oil. Rendering bacon fat with oil seems totally unnecessary. I have an old edition of TJOC from the mid-60s I believe, and I've had similar experiences with some of the recipes. Some are fantastic, like the filling for pumpkin pie, but some seem to have outdated advice. I think the whole "you need oil to render bacon fat" concept is one of those. (I've been lurking for a while but this is my first comment. I'm enjoying your blog a lot!!)
ReplyDeleteI'm sure that's right. That being said, I don't think that even not adding the oil would have saved this sauce.
ReplyDeleteAnd thanks for commenting :) I always like comments!