Spaghetti a’la spaghetti bolognese

We decided to celebrate US National Spaghetti Day by uploading this recipe. I know there is a lot of controversy about what ingredients should 'real' spaghetti bolognese contain, I'm not going to participate in this discussion though. This recipe is how I do spaghetti and while it is inspired by bolognese (hence the a'la part), it is completely my own take on making this sauce.

We need to begin by asking what a bolognese should be - and it should be certainly a meaty sauce. I like to use beef and pork shoulder because both have decent fat content which helps to develop a delicious flavor. You can of course substitute different cuts, as long as they're not too lean. Lean cuts of meat after grinding and frying will result in a quite dry mixture, not really what we're looking for.

I like to grind my own meat, because thanks to that I have complete control over what ends up in it. However if you wish you can of course have your meat ground for you at your butcher's. I grind my garlic with the meat, however you can just chop it up and add to ground meat if you wish.

And then frying - there are a lot of opinions what produces best sauce, I however like to brown my meat just a little. A bit of browning adds a lot to the flavor, however I find that if you brown the meat a lot it becomes drier and not as good as just lightly fried.

Another thing are the spices. Of course you can modify the recipe to your liking, I however like to add a lot of basil. For me it's part of what makes the dish so tasty.

The step of thickening the sauce may seem unnecessary if you cooked it long enough, I however think it's worth it. The starch in flour emulsifies the fats, draws excess water from the sauce with all the flavors and makes the sauce stick beautifully to any pasta you serve it with.

Follow the recipe and soon you'll have a beautiful, meaty sauce just right to serve with your prefered pasta - be it spaghetti, penne, or even as meat sauce in lasagna (which we often do with leftovers).

Preparation time: 30 min preparation + 1h cooking time

Serving: 12 - 14 portions

Ingredients

1 kg pork shoulder
1 kg beef shoulder
0,5 kg button mushrooms
5 red bell peppers
6 cloves of garlic, peeled
1l tomato passata
2 tbsp basil
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp chilli (or more if you like it spicy)
1/2 tsp ground black pepper (or to taste)
2 tbsp salt
olive oil
3 tbsp of all purpose flour

Preparation

Cut meat into strips to feed into a grinder.
Grind garlic and meat in the grinder.
Cut button mushrooms into halves for easier processing.
Remove seeds from bell peppers. Cut the bell peppers into managable chunks.
Chop the mushrooms in food processor into small pieces.
Chop the bell peppers in food processor.
Heat the oil and fry the meat mixture lightly in a big pot.
When lightly browned, add the mushrooms and stir.
Add the chopped bell peppers and the tomato passata.
Add all the spices.
Simmer on low heat for at least an hour or until most water evaporates. Remember to stir every 10-15 minutes so it doesn't stick.
Check for additional seasoning, especially salt.
Mix flour with water in a cup. Stirring the sauce with a whisk add slowly your flour mixture mixing it in well. And you're done!

COOKING LESSON

Adding flour helps to emulsify the fats. The starch in flour also draws in excess water. Both water and fat contain flavors. After thickening with flour it helps to create more uniform, flavorful and rich sauce while helping it stick to the pasta.
Using whisk to mix your water and flour mixture into the sauce is almost foolprof as it disperses the flour quickly not allowing for clumps to form in the sauce.
After adding the flour mixture you can cook the sauce for a few more minutes to make sure there is no raw flour taste left.

ADDITIONAL NOTES

Despite it being named spaghetti sauce, you can use any pasta you like with it. We especially like penne, but any short or long pasta will do nice. You can even eat the sauce over rice and it still is delicious.
You can try the sauce mixed with a bit of sour cream to change it into something new, and possibly even better.
Leftover spaghetti sauce may be used as a meat sauce in a lasagna - we use it this way very often as you need only to cook some lasagna sheets and make white sauce to have a completely new dish.
Spaghetti sauce freezes quite well, so portioning it and freezing 1-2 portions at a time can provide you with a fast homemade microwaveable dinner for those lazy days.

Bla bla talk

On our first date with Tatiana on 26.10.2012, we went to cinema to see "Woman from the mist" directed by Gosho Heinosuke as we love everything japanese. We loved the film and had a great time together. One of first meals we had together at my home however, was spaghetti made with this recipe. It was one of the recipes I've cooked the most often as a student as it was delicious while at the same time it allowed me to cook a big pot and have food for most of the week. It was perfected a bit throughout the years, however the core of the recipe stays the same and we still love to eat it today. Tatiana has her own version of spaghetti recipe which we'll probably also share with you one day.