I agree if you are going for a long cook/simmer, fresh tomatoes are kind of wasted. Cans would be the way to go (or formerly fresh tomatoes one has canned, perhaps).
I’ve never found dry basil (or dry parsley, for that matter) to add anything to a dish, and much prefer adding fresh basil at the end — although that would be more of a marinara than a ‘Sunday gravy’ type of sauce.
Similar to my delicious hot dog travesty described above: It was five o’clock and we ran into our next door neighbors while walking our dog. They invited themselves to dinner and were bringing two bottles of some Sicilian red wine. They sat at the counter, and we opened the first bottle. I rummaged in the fridge, and this was the result. First, duh, a soffrito. To that I add have a leftover pork tenderloin, minced, and located some well past their best by date (a couple of weeks) shiitakes. They looked tired but still edible. (Mushrooms seem to me to get a bit more good funkiness when kept a few extra days (or more).) So I minced them and tossed them in. While everything was on low heat, I rummaged in the pantry. No San Marzanos. However, there were, in the fridge, half a bottle of Mutti passata and the last tbsp. of a tube of Alessi tomato paste. Also a bit more anchovy paste. To all that I added the bottom of a bottle of rose, pepperoncino, black pepper, grated nutmeg, and fennel seed crushed in the old M & P. As the fettucine was nearly done, the sauce received a hearty splash of Mexican crema. The pasta and sauce were tossed in a bowl and topped with grated Parmigiana and Pec Rom. Added a salad and dinner was ready. Dessert was blueberries tossed in orgeat on vanilla ice cream and pound cake. It is a good thing there is no nonna in the house to be horrified.
Thanks for your tips!
I still haven’t made the Hazan Bolognese, or any proper Bolognese.
thanks!!
My grandma’s Sunday Sauce is similar to thekitchn recipe you posted.
BUT----you need some kind of bone to give the sauce body. She used either a couple of pork neck bones or a bone in pork chop or two along with sausage (always sweet) and beef chuck. She never used sugar, and more often than not she used dried basil.
She was Brooklyn-born Italian of Calabrian immigrants, and never did I see her use a hot pepper in ANYTHING!
thanks!
that’s interesting about the lack of hot peppers! The Calabrian Canadians I know add Bomba to almost everything. LOL.
Most of my cousins on that side of the family love spicier food. One of them even grows Calabrian hot peppers with his daughter, who at 7 years old eats them right off the vine. So IDK what happened there. I guess the spice loving gene skipped Grandma!
Here are 2 copies of the recipe, one is from her son:
https://giulianohazan.com/classic-bolognese-meat-sauce/
In some versions, the wine is added before the milk reduction … in my book the milk comes first and that’s what I’ve done. I always triple the recipe … why not? After the first couple of times, I added garlic, dried basil, dried oregano. (No one has to do this … it’s just what I prefer.) I now run the San Marzano D.O.P. canned tomatoes (I love Ital brand) through a food mill first.
Here are my ingredients:
1 large yellow onion, chopped (1 ½ cups)
2 cups chopped celery (about 6-7 stalks)
2 cups chopped carrots (buy with greens attached)
2 big cans San Marzano tomatoes
7 cloves minced garlic (remove and discard inner germ)
2 ¼ lbs ground chuck (best from a quality butcher counter)
3 cups milk
3 cups dry white wine
Fresh basil leaves
Dried basil and dried oregano
3 Tablespoons Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
9 Tablespoons unsalted butter
She says to simmer as low as possible … this takes way too long … I do at a higher simmer but I do cook it 3-4 hours.
This lasagna with her fresh pasta recipe would be my last meal request. You can make the sauce Day 1, refrigerate after it cools, do the rest the next day.
I’m surprised she calls it “classic” bolognese, since classic bolognese barely has any tomato in it, let alone 2 big ole cans of them 
This is a triple recipe, 2 28 oz cans for 2 1/4 lbs ground beef, chuck.
Her son, Guiliano, uses 2 cups of canned tomatoes for 12 oz of ground beef chuck.
I don’t know what that means in the context.
It’s quite lovely, nice for a lazy weekend when it can simmer away (when short on time, I wait for the milk and wine to be absorbed and then use a PC for the last stage).
Pop over to the Marcella Hazan thread when you do make it:
This was well said – and funny (and also holds true of most “traditional” recipes from anywhere):
Classic Bolognese is one of those sauces with many versions, and most Italian cooks believe that theirs is the only truly authentic preparation. Most food historians agree that the sauce was created in the city from which it is named, Bologna, the capital of the region where my husband’s family is from. People from that area are so serious about “their” recipe that they have trademarked the name and made January 17th “Ragù alla Bolognese” day.
The Accademia Italiana della Cucina registered their recipe for the sauce in 1982 as the one authentic version. It organized an international Bolognese day in 2010 during which 450 chefs cooked the sauce; however, true to Italian custom, most used their own “authentic” recipes and not the trademarked registered one.
I’ve not tried the Hazan recipe, but I never make anything (meat sauce, meat loaf, etc) using beef alone, as I find it too dry and flavorless.
What’s PC?
Pressure cooker
Since you have a ton of garden tomatoes to use up I disagree with others that it’s a waste to use fresh tomatoes for homemade spaghetti sauce. We blanch in boiling water. Remove skins, core and cut in chunks into a colander over a very large bowl. Keep mashing them down. Seeds and all. You’ll have bunch of juice. That’s the pita part.
Then the enjoyable part starts. Olive oil, chopped onion (I wait until later to add garlic), dried oregano and basil, chopped cherry peppers, red pepper flakes, s&p. Let it sizzle away for awhile then add tomato paste and let it cook down until rich and dark. Next, in goes all the tomatoes and juice. I add some red wine and a little sugar because my mother always said to counteract the acidity of the tomatoes. Let it simmer away for at least 4 hours or more depending on how big the pot.
I’ll thank my friends again over on the WFD thread when I complained last year about too many fresh tomatoes and I don’t like raw tomatoes. They were nice enough about it and constructive criticism pointed me in the right direction.
will do
Your recipe sounds great.
I have a lot of tomatoes. LOL
We really liked the sauce tonight. It is the best Italian American style meat sauce I’ve made.
I mostly followed the Mortaldellahead link in terms of ingredients.
I used about 7 cups of fresh chopped tomatoes, basil from the garden to around 1.5 lbs of cooked pork and beef meatballs (Thursday’s leftovers) . After sauteeing the onion and garlic, and deglazing with red wine, I braised the meatballs, chopped tomatoes, fresh basil, onions et al in a 200 F convection on oven for 7 h. covered, with some holes to let a little steam out
.
thank you.
