Post: #1

One thing that I think gets overlooked is cooking game. I browsed the forum and found a few threads, the one by Slubu in particular (and which is awesome btw), but nothing more than that. Long story short, I worked in restaurants for quite some time, while picking up a particular set of skills that have enabled me to cook some great meals for girls. Some of em ended up in bangs, others didnt. But there was one constant: they were blown away by the quality of the prepared meals.

My favorite dish throughout the years and even now is the Bolognese. I love it due to the fact that its relatively inexpensive to make and tastes fucking amazing. Im sure many of you have tried it, but for those who dont know it's basically a meat sauce served over some sort of pasta, usually a fettuccine/linguine/spaghetti type. Another great thing about the Bolognese is how little actual cooking you have to do; once all the ingredients are in, you just leave it on to simmer for a few hours, the longer the better. Here's my personal way of doing it, which combines classic Bolognese ingredients with my own little twists here and there. Im sure thedude, if he reads this thread, will have an input and hopefully criticisms to possibly elevate this recipe I would say this recipe is intended for 2-3 people:

Ingredients you will need

1 tbsp butter
1-2 lb of ground beef, preferable 80% fat 20% lean. The fattier the better.
2 medium onions, small diced
1 carrot, small diced
2 sticks of celery, small diced
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 cup of ground nutmeg
1 cup red wine, any cooking wine will do
1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes, whole tomatoes, or diced tomatoes. If you can get your hands on a brand called San Marzano, that's top notch. If not, no biggie.
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup Parmgiano-Reggiano cheese, or Grana Padano (make sure you use the real stuff, not Kraft)
1 lb of strand-like dry pasta, preferably fettuccine or spaghetti
salt, pepper, chili flakes

Step 1

In a decent sized pot, melt the butter over low heat. Add in the onions, celery, and carrot and sweat them over low heat for 5-10 minutes. Season the veg with salt, pepper, and chili flakes for some heat. This is a crucial step. You definitely dont want to rush cooking the veggies here. Let them get soft and translucent and keep a close eye on them. You should not be hearing a sizzling sound, if you do, youre burning them. The sound emanating from the pot should be more of a snake hissing.

Step 2

Once the veggies are nice and soft, add in the garlic. I go heavy on the garlic but you can cut down based on preferences. Continue sweating for another 3-5 minutes. DO NOT BURN THE GARLIC. You can avoid this by maintaining a low heat.

Step 3

Add in the meat. Season the meat generously with salt, pepper, and the nutmeg. Now, a lot of recipes will tell you to brown the meat and then continue. I say go beyond that. Turn up the heat to medium-high and really roast the meat, past the browning stage. Roast it for about 10 minutes. This will help develop the flavor of the finished sauce. Dont worry, it will not burn. Make sure to stir it up once in a while and have it well-combined with the veggies.

Step 4

Once the meat is well-browned (it should have a rather dark color, not beige), add in the red wine. It will take about 2-3 minutes to dissipate. Dont worry, you wont taste the alcohol in the finished dish. Once the wine is completely absorbed, add in the canned tomatoes. Bring the mixture up to a boil, turn the heat down to low, and this is where youre 95% done. Let it simmer. 2-3 hours. The tomatoes will naturally break down and you will be left with a nice, smooth sauce. I like to finish it off with the heavy cream to refine the texture, as well as the Parmigiano cheese.

Step 5

Boil your pasta as per package directions (make sure it's al dente, which means it still has a bit of a bite to it). Add the finished pasta to the sauce, combine, and serve.

I like to grate some more Parmesan over the pasta Serve with a nice bottle of red wine. Enjoy and any feedback would be welcome!

Post: #2

i love cooking game. Its a great way to get friendly with a chick too. This looks awesome, i would try it for dinner at my place tomorrow, but I literally just got back from the store to make a tortelini/feta/spinich/chicken sausage dish that is one of my staples.

Thanks for posting, going to try this one next week by myself.

Post: #3

Awesome. I like one can crushed and one can diced. If you use all diced it becomes too chunky and chili like, not saucy enough.
If you brown the meat at the same time in a second pan it speeds things up. I also put the tomato before the wine. Apparently tomatoes react with alcohol to give a special flavour to the sauce that can't be got any other way

Post: #4

Well done. Props for the San Marzano tomatoes.

Post: #5

I'll occasionally cook for a bitch, but this seems too heavy. I want something that won't have make her full or interfere with her absorbing an appropriate amount of alcohol. Still, good recipe.

Post: #6

you get her drinking while you cook, empty stomach+booze FTW.

Post: #7

Nice recipe. Im in the restaurant biz and we've cooked probably 50-75 different batches of bolognese while developing a recipe for our perfectionist boss. Veal, sausage, short ribs, skirt steak etc I've tried them all and here are a couple things that will take this to the next level.
1. After slow simmering veggies in olive oil remove them and heat the pan with cooking oil until smoking and then add seasoned oxtail and diced pork shoulder instead of ground meat. Brown all sides. It must be hot enough to fry the meat. And do it in batches so the pan isn't overcrowded otherwise it will steam. This high heat creates flavor that can't be replicated ( mallard reaction) Remove the meat and excess oil then deglaze the pan with the wine scraping the brown bits from the pan. Put oxtail in chees cloth and tie then submerge into the sauce with the rest of ingredients and simmer until it's falling off the bones. Remove meat-chop, and put back in the pan. Simmer for another half hour and add butter before serving.

The oxtail will create a rich flavor that can't be copied because of the bones. The same technique can be used with ground meat with great results but much less time consuming. Another tip is to add the milk or cream in the beginning before simmering. This should be cooked down until it's thick and meaty, not like marinara sauce.

Post: #8

(04-17-2014 11:55 PM)SDGuerro Wrote:  Nice recipe. Im in the restaurant biz and we've cooked probably 50-75 different batches of bolognese while developing a recipe for our perfectionist boss. Veal, sausage, short ribs, skirt steak etc I've tried them all and here are a couple things that will take this to the next level.
1. After slow simmering veggies in olive oil remove them and heat the pan with cooking oil until smoking and then add seasoned oxtail and diced pork shoulder instead of ground meat. Brown all sides. It must be hot enough to fry the meat. And do it in batches so the pan isn't overcrowded otherwise it will steam. This high heat creates flavor that can't be replicated ( mallard reaction) Remove the meat and excess oil then deglaze the pan with the wine scraping the brown bits from the pan. Put oxtail in chees cloth and tie then submerge into the sauce with the rest of ingredients and simmer until it's falling off the bones. Remove meat-chop, and put back in the pan. Simmer for another half hour and add butter before serving.

The oxtail will create a rich flavor that can't be copied because of the bones. The same technique can be used with ground meat with great results but much less time consuming. Another tip is to add the milk or cream in the beginning before simmering. This should be cooked down until it's thick and meaty, not like marinara sauce.

What you're describing here sounds more akin to a Southern style "Ragu Napolitano". Which is delicious in and of itself.

The OP recipe is solid in its fundamentals. Everyone has variations here and there. You'll find Italians from central Italy that swear that pancetta and diced chicken liver is essential. To each their own.

For my taste, this recipe would come out too heavy for what I consider a top shelf bolognese. I'm sure it's delicious, but I'm not a fan of using beef or this much tomato. You'll find plenty of regions in Italy that would make bolognese like this though, and I've known several Italians from Piedmont who make it exactly like this.

For me, bolognese is delicate and subtle. For that I use a 50/50 blend of ground pork and veal, with a small handful of chopped pancetta or guanciale (cured pork jowl). I use a tablespoon of tomato paste instead of a whole can of tomatoes. After browning the meat and sweating the veg, I add the wine and cook it down until it's completely dry. Then I cook the meat and vegetables in a rich meat stock, the longer the better, sometimes up to 7 hours, and then finish with heavy cream at the end. I like a bay leaf and a few scrapings of nutmeg. 100% of Italians would scoff at using dried pasta with bolognese instead of fresh, but making fresh is a bit of a hassle. However, it's the type of thing you can do in a couple hours, spend an afternoon and really enjoy making pasta with your bare hands, and then freeze your fresh pasta. It's good like that for months.

I like a little dried porcini thrown in with the meat stock and to use white wine instead of red. But like I said, the fundamentals of your recipe are sound, it's simply a matter of preference and minor variations here and there. I prefer to toss the fresh pasta in the pan with the sauce (the picture above is oversauced for my taste) and only add parmesan at that point.

When I make tagliatelle bolognese it looks exactly like this:

Post: #9

both of those look fantastic

And if the girl is vegan?

Post: #10

I get about 80% of my notches from cooking game (ie, inviting them for dinner). While it sounds expensive, it's actually cheaper than taking them to a bar (one round costs you as much as a full meal) and I let them bring the wine (so they have an investment in it, and don't feel like they're fucking me because of the food).

@eradicator: just google "vegan pasta" and search for an easy highly rated dish, it's often times not that difficult.

Post: #11

I want to taste some food cooked by thedude. Everything you make looks good.

That being said, it's best not to make something carb heavy. It will make women feel heavy and sleepy.

But excellent game tip and great thread.

Post: #12

Good recipe. Just one thing, Italians never use spaghetti for a bolognese. Always go for broader pasta. Makes the rather heavy and dryish bolognese stick better on the noodles.

Post: #13

Fuark, that looks tasty.

Post: #14

This looks delicious and I'm going to make it. Thanks for posting it.

One-quarter cup of nutmeg? That sounds like way too much, but maybe it works?

Agreed, cooking game is overlooked. It's my secret weapon. It's all the more persuasive considering that most American women can do little in the kitchen beyond operating a microwave.

Post: #15

yeah i didn't catch the nutmeg. That's way too much. Maybe you meant quarter teaspoon?

Post: #16

(04-18-2014 03:24 AM)Valhalla Wrote:  I want to taste some food cooked by thedude. Everything you make looks good.

I don't really make pasta at home anymore, going mostly paleo.

Most Mondays, I'm in my front yard grilling on one of these:



The results are better than anything I've had from any restaurant. I'd be down for a forum meetup/cookout sometime.

Post: #17

(04-18-2014 09:25 PM)thedude3737 Wrote:  yeah i didn't catch the nutmeg. That's way too much. Maybe you meant quarter teaspoon?

Good catch. I would say 2 tbsp. It's definitely a personal preference. And good call on the fresh pasta. The difference between that and dry is night and day, but realistically speaking, i just dont have the patience for it when im home. Ive also found that orrechiete (ear shaped pasta) go really well with the bolognese. Pick up the sauce nicely.

Post: #18

(04-18-2014 09:29 PM)thedude3737 Wrote:  

(04-18-2014 03:24 AM)Valhalla Wrote:  I want to taste some food cooked by thedude. Everything you make looks good.

I don't really make pasta at home anymore, going mostly paleo.

You can substitute the pasta for zucchini strips, it comes out tasting pretty good.

Post: #19

I'll be trying corn pasta.

There's also quinoa pasta, but I have yet to try it. Has anyone tried it? What did you think?

Post: #20

(04-18-2014 12:44 AM)eradicator Wrote:  both of those look fantastic

And if the girl is vegan?

Don't worry theres plenty of fish in the sea

Post: #21

I tested the formula this evening.
The only changes I made were in the cooking time and cheese. I lacked the full 2-3 hours to boil the sauce, so I had to pare it down to 1 hour. The name of the cheese thru me. I spent 1/2 hour wondering through the cheese section of my local supermarket trying to find it until looking it up on the Net with my Android phone. Duh. Parmesan. Figures a chef would use an advanced term. I did remember not to buy the stuff from Kraft. I had no trouble locating the other raw materials.
My sauce came out a little bit chunkier than the one on the picture. The flavor was still incredible, but I think heating it longer might have made a difference in the overall texture.
Thanks for the receipt. Next time I make it I'll find a suitable subject to test it on.

Post: #22

(04-18-2014 12:44 AM)eradicator Wrote:  both of those look fantastic

And if the girl is vegan?

She's still in for some blood sausage