When I say “you cook – I eat” nowadays, I usually refer to the things that he loves the most from my recipes, and this one’s a prime example for that. There are of course others, and some of them are actually waiting to be posted – I promise I’ll get to it someday.
My love for spaghetti Bolognese comes from when I was a little child. I already mentioned that it went under the name of “cat stew” in my family, which is a reference of the silly stereotypes that Italians eat cat meat. It is not a generally well known stereotype and as such, the term did cause some funny moments in my family’s history. One day my aunt was taking my cousin home from school and they got onto the super busy underground. My cousin had this really low and loud voice for a child, so when he turned to my aunt and asked “Mom, when are you making cat stew for dinner again?” the entire car heard it. Needless to say, my aunt got approximately 300 killer looks, and people swiftly moved away from near them. So there she stood with a 6 year old child in the middle of the car with nobody around her in a 2 metre radius, all because of the silly cat stew. I think that’s pretty funny. :p
I am not going to give tons of details of how my mom makes spaghetti, but let it be said that she actually never buys ground beef for it – nor does she grind the meat at all. She will spend about half an hour cutting the beef into miniscule cubes and only then can the cooking begin. When I was a kid, I used to eat Bolognese with ketchup on top (I am really ashamed of this now) and I didn’t know better until I was 16 and went to
I think the key to a good Bolognese is to not be afraid of investing time into cooking it long enough. It usually takes me 3-4 hours to be done, and I really don’t regret that I’m taking my time. Over the course of years, I have changed many things in the original recipe that I took from my mom (i.e. I try to completely avoid ketchup when making the sauce, and have also significantly reduced the amount of spices and salt that I used up until a couple of years ago) and I think it has evolved into something really exquisite by now.
I also use mushrooms (although standard Bolognese doesn’t have that) and fresh herbs, especially since I moved to
So without further ado, here’s the recipe and the ingredients – this does serve 6-8 people, depending how hungry they are:
- A few slices of bacon (cut into small pieces)
- 2 big onions (finely chopped)
- 4-6 cloves of garlic depending on the size of the clove (crushed)
- 1 kilo of ground beef
- 500g mushrooms (thinly sliced)
- 2 carrots (grated)
- 1 turnip (grated) (If you have no access to turnip, you can use half a celery)
- 500 ml tomato puree
- Fresh marjoram, rosemary, thyme, oregano and basil (finely chopped)
- Salt, sugar (to taste)
- Spaghetti
- Tons of cheese (grated)
In a large pan, sautée the bacon until golden brown. Add the onions to it and crush the garlic on top of the bacon-onion mixture. Stir carefully and add the marjoram, the rosemary and the oregano. Stir for another half a minute, turn the stove on to high temperature and add the meat. This is when you start stirring like crazy and stabbing the meat (that just gave me a very bad mental image :)) to make sure that it mixes well with the onion-herb mix and that it actually falls into crumbs rather than stick together in a huge patty. Once the meat has browned and is crumby enough, stir the mushrooms into the mix, put the lid onto the pan and leave them there for about 5 minutes.
In the meantime, cook the spaghetti (al dente, otherwise it’s going to turn into a big mushy mess while being baked.) – and make sure you keep to the basic rules, fools (as Mr. T would say) – do not put oil into the cooking water, and for god’s sakes don’t rinse them in cold water when done aaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!! When the spaghetti is done, get a decently sized porcelain/glass baking dish (I have no idea what these are called in English, I don’t even know what they’re called in Hungarian.) and put a layer of noodles onto the bottom. Add a layer of the sauce on top (I usually make sure that it’s evenly spread all across the spaghetti, and then I mix the pasta with the sauce.) – continue until you run out of pasta.
Put the bazillion tons of cheese onto the top (I usually use standard mozzarella, or gratin mix) and put it into the oven at 250 degrees for about 10 minutes, which is when the cheese turns golden brown and crunchy on top, and you’re good to go!
Needless to say, serving can be quite tricky, I usually end up happy if I only mess up the first plate. :)
Judit, you're such a great cook!
ReplyDeleteJudit, I have been looking for the answer of the question below, and I never got the answer from the people I met when I was in Hungary.
ReplyDelete"Why are grocery stores/small supermarkets called ABC in Hungary??"
It's an abbreviation and it stands for "Alapvető Beszerzési Cikkek" - which translates to "Basic Procurable Items." In other words - basic groceries :)
ReplyDelete