think the thin layers of ragu are the right approach - with the bechamel and thin pasta the texture of the dish is heaven. Yours sounds wonderful!
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Yes, mine was definitely a dish of sauce this time around! I think I’ll try rolling to a 5 next time (since I’m not using semolina) AND cut back on my sauce layers, that should get me a much better balance!
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Fun! I have seen videos of this process - if I had the counter space I would love to give it a go. I agree that being able to cut to just the right size is a nice advantage.
Here is a pic of the Layers.
We assemble and cut into Portions before baking. (This is for Restaurant service of course)
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Beautiful!
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Thanks, like I said we make 6-8 4" 1/2 Hotel Pans a Week! 
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My go to recipe is the one in the big yellow Gourmet cookbook. For those of you who have had that one as well as some of the more famous Italian chef ones Hazan or Bastianich, can you compare? I’m curious whether there is any reason to depart from the typical recipe and try something new. Other than just for the adventure of it all.
Depends. Bolognese is a defined recipe. Any variation means it’s now a meat ragu to go with pasta.
Us? We never cook the traditional recipe.
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Not sure about that even in Italy/Emilia-Romagna there seem to be a few organizations claiming to have original recipe. I think the key component are agreed on (light on tomato, dairy included etc) but the exact ratios are even in Italy an ongoing debate
Lots of tomato and no dairy in this house.
So you are making meat ragu 
I think it is also fairly accepted that it needs to be no less than 60% Beef and Onion, Carrot, Celery Sofrito (no Garlic, Herbs etc..).
Of course it varies from household to household but other additions Pancetta, Chicken Liver, Sausage, Wine etc…
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Can you post the ingredient list?
Yes. As mentioned in my earlier post
Oops, I guess I can’t read
Basically mire poix, ground meat, garlic, tomato paste and sauce, milk, white wine, nutmeg. Oil, salt pepper. This is from recall.
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Those are generally the ingredients in the recipe I prefer (adapted from Mario Batali). I find the proportion of tomato and the type of tomato used are what really define the flavor of any given Bolognese recipe, and I prefer those that call for just a small amount of tomato paste to keep the meat at the forefront. I like meat sauces with a higher proportion of tomato as well, but I don’t really consider them Bolognese.
The Hazan recipe uses canned crushed tomatoes and quite a lot of them (approximately the same amount of tomatoes as meat, by weight), which IMO makes it taste much more like an American-Style tomato-meat sauce than what I think of as Bolognese. Still delicious, and worth making if you want to branch out from your normal recipe, but definitely leans away from the meat-centric feel of recipes that use tomato paste.
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Hazan’s original recipe calls for 3/4 lbs of meat and 2 cups of canned tomatoes, roughly chopped, with their juice. that quantity of tomato is a good deal less than canned crushed tomatoes which normally are somewhat saucy. Given the holy trinity, the cup of white wine and the milk , not to mention the 6 tbsp of butter and oil that also go into the pot, the flavor or tomatoes is much less dominant than you would think. Its interesting that she reduced the chopped canned tomatoes to 1.5 C in Essentials (and the oil) while upping the onions carrot and celery and milk in the recipe. Finally I believe the actual quantity of tomato in paste is quite a lot more than simple canned tomatoes since the water has all been cooked out? This recipe cooks for several hours so any differences in water content in ingredients is compensated for by broth or water added to the pot.
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I’ve made the Hazan recipe, and found the flavor of the tomatoes much more prominent than I prefer in a Bolognese. To my palate, canned tomatoes, in addition to being much juicier than paste, also preserve much more of the acidic high notes of tomato flavor, even when reduced substantially as in Hazan’s recipe. IMO, paste gives Bolognese a more rounded, meat-forward flavor with just enough acidity to keep it from tasting flat. Hazan’s recipe was still (IMO) a delicious sauce, just not what I look for when I want Bolognese. YMMV.
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