Bolognaise/Bolognese or Ragu? And should it be served with spaghetti??

I decided to do a quick google search into the term bolognaise…primarily to check the spelling and it’s a minefield! Ragu is a meat sauce normally cooked for a long period of time that originates in Italy and can have many ingredients added to it. The version made in Bologna (a city in Italy that I’m yet to visit) has tomatoes in the ragu (and apparently milk too, something I’ve not yet tried), is always served with thick pasta such as tagliatelle but never spaghetti and it’s called Bolognese. There is also controversy about which herbs and spices are added. However there is evidence that spaghetti al ragu did actually exist so I’ll end this intro saying – keep making that bolognaise with garlic and whatever herbs you have to hand and serve it with spaghetti if you so desire, just don’t ask for it when visiting Italy :-)

Bolognese is a simple dish to do however it’s always a bit more time consuming than I expect. I made a Bolognese on Wednesday – in between my spin class and seeing a client. It’s something that seems to go down well with the whole family (except A, although I have fond memories of him happily eating spaghetti covered in Bolognese just a few years ago…) and as we had friends coming over hoped they would enjoy it too.

This is how I normally make it – finely (well, sometimes not so finely) chopped onions, fried in olive oil. I have to be so careful not to leave it on too high a heat and burn the onions because I’m in a bit of a hurry... next I add some chopped peppers (any colour, depending on what’s in the fridge!) and let them soften down too. I add chopped garlic at this point (which I now know is frowned upon in Bologna, Italy). Once the mince is in I let it all brown completely before adding in any other ingredients but I’m sure that’s not necessary. I like to add a good serving of tomato paste to get that rich tomato taste as well as some beef stock. I either add wine (normally red but have just found out white wine is what Italian chefs use so I will try that next time) or balsamic vinegar. Once that has cooked down it’s time to add all those other veggies (grated carrots and chopped mushrooms in this instance). How finely to chop the vegetables is another conundrum – do I make them tiny and hope the children don’t see them, or large enough that they can just dig out the ones they don’t want? There was also a time where I pureed A’s Bolognese to properly hide the veg!

Add in the tomato – passata is definitely the way forwards when cooking a Bolognese (however a tin of tomatoes will do when that’s all you have in the cupboard).Do let your Bolognese cook on a low heat for as long as possible to get the mince nice and soft. Another option is to use a slow cooker if you have one! Adding salt and pepper – well that was something I stopped doing once the children started weaning however as they’re a bit older do add a bit in when cooking. It does improve the flavour adding during rather than after the cooking but I think it’s more important to limit the children’s salt intake. As my husband is currently marathon training he has increased his salt intake anyway and adds a bit of Himalayan rock salt to anything I cook…

NHS website states:

The maximum recommended amount of salt for babies and children is:

· up to 12 months – less than 1g of salt a day (less than 0.4g sodium)

· 1 to 3 years – 2g of salt a day (0.8g sodium)

· 4 to 6 years – 3g of salt a day (1.2g sodium)

· 7 to 10 years – 5g of salt a day (2g sodium)

· 11 years and over – 6g of salt a day (2.4g sodium)

The best thing about a Bolognese sauce is that it’s so versatile! I made extra so we now have leftovers – it can be used for a cottage pie (although I’d add more green vegetables and some lamb stock), on toast or on a jacket potato - as we had last night! (one sweet and one normal potato).