Tagliatelle / Spaghetti Bolognese

| By: Kristina Gong |

In my family, we hardly ever have noodles for dinner. As the most important meal in a day, dinner has to be well-balanced with all kinds of food, which most noodles cannot offer. Tagliatelle/Spaghetti Bolognese is one exception. It has various kinds of vegetables and meat and besides, it is not difficult even for beginners like me!

Ingredients

Yield: 5 servings

• Oil

• 500g lean ground beef

• 1 onion

• 1 carrot

• 1 stalk of celery

• several sprigs of thyme

• 2 cloves of garlic

• basil

• salt

• 100ml white wine(optional)

• tomato paste

• 3 tomatoes

• 150ml of milk/cream

• 25g butter

• cracked black pepper

• 500g Tagliatelle

Cooking Instructions

1. Chop the carrot, onion, celery, and garlic into small pieces

2. Put the tomatoes into boiling water for several minutes, then take them out and remove the peel. Cut the tomatoes into larger pieces

3. Pour some oil into the pan. After the oil is heated, add the beef

4. Cook the beef until it turns brown, then put in the onions

5. After the onions are cooked, put in the carrot and celery

6. Pour the white wine in (optional)

7. Put in the basil and thyme to your own taste

8. Add in some tomato paste to give the dish some red color

9. Add the tomatoes

10. Add the garlic

11. Pour in the milk/cream

12. Add some butter into the sauce, and add salt to your own taste

13. Close the lid and let it simmer for 1-2 hours

14. To cook the noodles: pour water into another pot and add some salt into it. When it boils, put in the noodles

15. When it is time to eat, put the noodles on a plate, add some pasta water, and spread some sauce on top of it. You can grate some cheese or spread some cracked black pepper if you wish

Notes

• There is much room for adaption according to one’s own taste. One can add truffle or chicken liver to give the dish more flavor, as recommended by the first Italian regional cookbook author, Artusi. Other vegetables, such as mushrooms, can be added as well.

• Sometimes people eat Tagliatelle Bolognese with side dishes. Some recommended dishes include chicken, pork loin, and other vegetables such as broccoli. Still many others consider the noodles as a one-pot dish and eat it only with bread and salad.

• I tried the sauce twice, first with spaghetti then with some local broad egg noodles that were very similar to tagliatelle. It took roughly 15 minutes to cook the spaghetti and the egg noodles cooked much faster. They both tasted good but the broad noodles took on more sauce with its flat surface, and spaghetti was chewier.