italian

There and Back Again: My Perfect Spaghetti Bolognese

maki — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 22:00:24 +0200

I love pasta in many guises, but when it comes to ultimate Comfort Pasta, there is nothing that compares to a spaghetti bolognese. By spaghetti bolognese, I mean spaghetti topped with a rich, ground-meat and tomato based sauce. No fancy ragu or such. I don’t think it’s that authentically Italian, but I don’t really care. It’s one of my favorite cool-weather dinners.

Once upon a time, I had what I thought was a perfect recipe for spaghetti bolognese. Then, about a year ago I lost my way. After a year of bewilderingly off-target bolognese, I’ve found my way back.

I blame Heston Blumenthal for messing with my head. (Disclaimer: I am otherwise a big fan of Mr. Blumenthal.) Last year, he tackled spaghetti bolognese on his In Search of Perfection television series (and in the book of course), and came up with a “perfect” version. The perfect Blumenthal version of spaghetti bolognese is, naturally, extremely complicated, but compared to the other “perfect” versions of various popular dishes it seemed to be the most doable. So, we (note the plural: it required a team effort) tackled it, piece by piece. It does help in life to have an almost equally food-obsessive partner for such quests.

It took us 3 full days to accomplish, starting from the pre-ordering of the meaty oxtails at the butcher counter (it’s not a commonly used cut here), finding the perfect spaghetti, ripe tomatoes in December (yes, I know) and the final slow cooking of the sauce. And the result?

It was good, yes, but perfect? Neither of us was sure. But yet it had flashes of something great in there; the meatiness of the gelatinous oxtail, the unctuous richness. So, we embarked on a long journey of trying to tweak that recipe. We tried different meat combinations. (Turkey is a definite no.) We experimented with bacon, chorizo, various sausages, salami. We tried less or more of the vegetables, canned tomatoes alone or fresh alone.

All were interesting, but I still felt off kilter. Then, the other day I made bolognese more or the way I had made it for years until the Blumenthal experiments - and, it was just about perfect.

Mind you, it’s probably because my criteria for a perfect bolognese are different from the great chef’s, as I explain below. And some of the ideas gleaned from the Blumenthal version and the ensuing experiments did creep in, making the sauce even better. In any case, I’m now happy that this is my Perfect Spaghetti Bolognese. I can now move on to perfecting other things.

Defining my Perfect Bolognese

I prefer my bolognese to have a rich, deep taste of tomato, wine, and meat. I also like the meat to be ground quite finely so that you get an integrated ‘meat sauce’, rather than ‘bits of meat suspended in a sauce’.

The experiments with cured meats convinced me that I don’t like cured-meat flavor or smoke flavor in the sauce, but a little bacon is added for richness.

I like the sauce to be rich, but not swimming in fat (a pronounced feature of the Blumenthal version).

It’s key to let the sauce cook for a very long time - minimum 3 hours after the preparatory stage - in a thick-walled pan, ideally a Le Creuset or similar.

The only pasta to use is a robust, dried spaghetti. The kind we use all the time now is substantial and rough textured, as you can see from the picture. That rough surface absorbs sauce in a very satisfying way. It costs almost twice as much as Barilla spaghetti, but is worth it. (If you are using Barilla or other mass-produced line though, I’d go for the spaghettoni rather than spaghetti.)

(For readers in Switzerland, this is the Spaghetti alla chitarra from the Migros Selection line.)

Things I liked and didn’t like about the Blumenthal version

The Heston Blumenthal bolognese is described in great detail in his first book, but also appears on this page. There’s another one on The Times web site, which is quite different.

Mixing fresh and canned tomato is a great idea, as is adding some cream - though I used butter instead, for that dairy unctuousness.

Long cooking, of course, is a good thing, though his version takes 9 hours.

The oxtail meat idea was interesting, but obtaining and then cutting the meat off the fiddly bones is way, way too much work - and ultimately, I felt, not quite worth it. It’s also quite expensive here in Switzerland. For the gelatinous quality I use some veal in the meat mixture instead.

His version was too sweet for me for some reason. I also didn’t like the star anise addition at all - this may have added to that sweet flavor somehow. I do like adding star anise to many meat dishes, especially pork, just not this one.

There was also too much added fat overall, which cause a very substantial oil slick to appear on the surface of the sauce.

I’ve always used red wine in bolognese, and he used an ‘oaky Chardonnay’. I prefer the robust red wine.

Recipe: My Perfect Spaghetti Bolognese

For the sauce:

The meats:

450-500g / 1 lb top loin or chuck
225-250g / 8 oz veal breast
225-250g / 8 oz. pork shoulder
100g / 3 oz non-smoked bacon or pancetta or speck, chopped fine

(Note that the beef and pork should be rather marbled, not very lean, if you need to use other cuts.)

Have all of the meats (except the bacon, which you’ll chop yourself) twice ground by the butcher, or grind it yourself (use a grinder or a food processor) until fairly fine but not a paste. If using a food processor, it helps to cube the meat and then half-freeze the cubes first. You can buy already ground meat if you prefer, but it should be not too lean as well.

The vegetables:

2 cups finely chopped onion
2 large cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 cup finely chopped celery
1 cup finely chopped carrot

Other stuff:

About 1/4 cup light olive oil
1 cup (250ml) red wine such as a Barbera or a Côte du Rhone (but I usually use whatever is handy, as long as it’s robust it’s fine)
1 large can (800g) canned tomatoes, the tomatoes smashed up (do this with your hands or in the food processor)
2 Tbs. tomato paste
4 cups peeled and chopped fresh tomatoes, seeds and all (If in the dead of winter, use another can of canned tomatoes instead)
2 bay leaves
Crushed dried or (preferably) fresh chopped rosemary leaves
Dried thyme
Dried oregano
Grated nutmeg
About 2 Tbs. butter, more or less to taste
Stock (veal or beef preferred) or water
Salt and pepper

And…the pasta etc.:

Spaghetti or spaghettoni, cooked al dente
Butter to toss with the spaghetti
Freshly grated Parmesano Reggiano (freshly grated Grana Padano is acceptable)

Equipment needed:

a heavy pan - I use an enamelled cast iron pot
large frying pan or sauté pan
Recommended to have: a food processor.

Heat up the olive oil in the heavy pot over medium heat. Toss in all the chopped up vegetables, then lower the heat to about midway between low and medium. Sauté the vegetables over the low heat, stirring occasionally, until it’s limp and very lightly tan.

In a large frying pan, sauté the ground meats until browned, and add it all into the pot. Deglaze (add a bit of the stock or water to the hot pan, scrape off the bits ) the frying pan and add that to the pot too.

Add all the other ingredients except the butter, water and salt and pepper. (The amount of herbs you add really depends on your taste. I like to add quite a bit of chopped fresh rosemary, about 2 tablespoons, because I have childhood memories of happily chewing on bits of rosemary leaves in my mother’s spaghetti bolognese. Add about a teaspoonful of the herbs and several grindings of the nutmeg, then taste after a few hours to see if you want more.)

Bring up the temperature until it’s bubbling, then lower the heat to ‘low’ and simmer, stirring up from the bottom of the pot occasionally, for at least 3 hours, preferably 4 or longer. Add a little stock or water whenever it starts to dry out too much. (You may also do this in the oven, but I prefer to do it on the rangetop and have just a tiny hint of burnt flavor in there.)

At the end of the cooking process, take out the bay leaves, stir in the butter, and add salt and pepper to taste.

This makes a lot of very rich sauce. About 1/2 cup is enough I think for a plate of dinner-portion spaghetti (allowing about 100g or 3 1/2 ounces dry weight per person). Portion and freeze the rest - it freezes beautifully.

To enhance the flavor, toss the freshly cooked spaghetti with a knob of butter prior to ladling on the sauce. Optionally top with freshly grated Parmesano Reggiano, or Grana Padano.

The only thing to serve with this is a green salad with a sharp vinegarette.

Notes

While the oil slick on this sauce is not as pronounced as the one that appears on the Blumenthal version, it is impressively deep. You can scoop some of this off if it scares you. (I would scoop off the excess oil prior to adding the butter…which may seem illogical, but you’ll be taking out ‘other’ oils and adding in butter flavor.)

You can also ‘stretch’ the sauce by taking a cupful and adding 1 small can (400g - about 8 oz) of crushed canned tomatoes. Adjust the salt and pepper. Sometimes I prefer this less-rich version.

Or, you can add one cupful to 1 cup of cream…for a very rich creamy sauce indeed.

Adding some sauteed mushrooms enhances it too.

The sauce as-is is perfect for layering in lasagna, stuffing cannellini and such, paired with a perfect Bechamel.

Don’t ruin it by covering it with pre-powdered cardboard ‘parmesan’. If there’s one thing I’ve learned while living in Switerland it’s that mystery cheese products taste really, really bad compared to the real thing.

Finally, in case you are wondering, spaghetti bolognese (also known as ‘spaghetti meat sauce’) is very popular in Japan. It has to be one of the most universally loved dishes in the world, no?

(Somewhat different and lighter pasta.)

An education in olive oil

maki — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 16:42:21 +0200

Olive oil is so ubiquitous nowadays that you may not even think twice about it. But the world of olive oil goes so much deeper than you might imagine. It's not just about buying a bottle labeled Extra Virgin and trusting it's all good.

For example, did you know that there are professional olive oil tasters, not to mention juried olive oil contests? That an apple is used as a palate cleanser during an official tasting or contest? That the best olive oil is made from unripe green olives? That if you want the freshest olive oil of the season, the time to buy it is from January until about March? That oil makers often use two or more olive varieties to come up with the unique blend?

I learned about these things and more when we visited the Zürich offices Di Bennardo, a family run olive farm and oil production company in Sicily a couple of days ago for an olive oil degustation (tasting). It was an enlightening and very entertaining experierence, and gave me a greater insight into the world of olive oil, as well as how a small family-run company is marketing its product with pride.

We first read about Di Bennardo olive oil in a recent article in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), the biggest newspaper in Zürich. The article described how a young entepreneur was marketing his family's Sicilian olive oil, an oil that had won several awards both from professionals and from consumers. It also mentioned that Di Bennardo held degustations (tastings). Intrigued, we just had to try. (Normally the degustations are held for groups of 10 or more but they kindly made an exception in our case.) Di Bennardo is a totally family run operation, with the farm and processing plant in the town of Ribera, Sicily and the main office in Zürich.

We were greeted by Giovanni Di Bennardo, the 27 year old owner of the company. After a brief explanation of the background of the company and of how olive oil is made as we sipped a white wine from Sicily, we proceeded to the tasting.

Giovanni gave us a slice of apple first, explaining that the slight acidity in the fruit is perfect for cleansing the palate. He then poured some of the olive oil into a INAO glass (the one that is used for official wine tastings). It was a deep green color, and totally clear. He explained that filtered premium quality olive oil such as his was really the best - it kept for a lot longer (a year to 18 months) than unfiltered olive oil, which only keeps for about 3 months. I had a misconception that unfiltered was somehow better than filtered, so this was a revelation to me. (Unfiltered olive oil also burns very easily - though you really don't want to be using any top quality olive oil for cooking anyway.)

He handed me the glass of olive oil and I swirled it in my hand, as I would a wine, and took a deep whiff. The only way to describe the smell is to say it was like green tomatoes, still on the vine, early in the morning with the dew still on the leaves. I know that adjectives like 'grassy' are often used to describe the smell of olive oil but this was much better than that. It smelled like summer.

At this point, a professional taster will slurp the olive oil from the glass, but I felt reluctant to do that. The idea of drinking oil straight up maybe? In any case, we proceeded to taste it in the more conventional way, by dipping cubes of bread in the oil. (White bread is best because it tastes neutral, Giovanni explained.) The oil was as fruity as I expected from the smell, but at the same time it was light and had no cloying aftertaste.

We bought a bottle of it right then and there (as well as a bottle of top quality Modena balsamic vinegar that they also sell).

Tasting at home

The next day, I set up a small olive oil tasting session of my own. I made ready an apple, wine glasses, and small bowls for dipping into. I poured out some oil from the three we had, all extra virgin oils; an AOC olive oil from Le Baux area in Provence (from the Moulin Jean-Corneille), the Di Bennardo olive oil, and finally the everyday olive oil that we use for cooking, the house brand oil (which comes from Spain) from the Migros supermarket. Price wise the Provence olive oil is a bit more expensive than the Di Bennardo, and the supermarket one is the cheapest of course.

Giovanni had told us that there are three criteria used by tasters for judging olive oil : color, odor and sapor or acidity. So first I checked the color. The Provence one is unfiltered so has a cloudy appearance, and is also yellow rather than green. The Di Bennardo one is a deep olive green, and totally clear. The supermarket one is surprisingly green also, and clear.

Then I deeply sniffed each one. The Provence oil had light fragrance, though it had the most olive-like one of them all. The Di Bennardo oil had that green-tomato smell. The Spanish supermarket oil was also surprisingly fruity, with a more pronounced grassy smell.

Finally I took a sip from each (getting over my "ew, drink oil?" reaction. It's really not so bad). The Provence one was quite smooth and neutral, slightly nutty, with little aftertaste. The Spanish one had a pronounced pepperiness, though not unpleasant. The Di Bennardo one was definitely the most fruity one, with almost no pepperiness. That peppery flavor comes from the level of acidity; the Di Bennardo olive oil label indicates that it's guaranteed to have less than 0.3% freeacidity, while the supermarket oil says it's less than 0.7%. (The Provence oil didn't indicate any acidity level.) So as luck would have it, I compared three very different oils. I think this is going to help me to judge other olive oils in the future. I've had olive oils that were so peppery that they almost made me gag - those must have had quite high acidity.

Later that night we tried the Di Bennardo and the Provence oil on plain lettuce salads. The fruitiness of the Di Bennardo definitely enhances the flavor of the vegetable, though the Provence one was also very good in a different way.

Marketing a family product

The other interesting aspect of visiting the Di Bennardo office was gaining some insight into how a small family company was marketing its product. Giovanni Di Bennardo is actually still a law student at the University of Zürich. (His father immigrated to Switzerland from Sicily many years ago.) Five years ago, when he was 22, he bought 300 bottles of olive oil from his uncle, who owns the family farm down in Sicily, and started marketing them in his way. Last year they produced 60,000 bottles, and he's been so busy that his studies are on hold. He told us his favorite marketing method was to pick up the Gault Millau restaurant guide and call them up to see if they would be interested in trying his oil. It's been quite successful since he's convinced several top restauranteurs to use, and endorse, his product.

They also put a lot of effort into packaging - the label is an old family photograph, to emphasize the fact that it is a family business; the bottle is made of dark glass to protect the oil from light, and sealed with foil. They also have wooden presentation boxes with laser-edged labels, for corporate gifts and the like. It all adds up to the image of high-end and quality. They've even published a small book, La Cucina di Bennardo, describing the family and the farm, with lots of photos and recipes of course.

They also enter the oil into international tasting contests. Giovanni said that the International Olive Oil Award (IOOA), which is held annually in Zürich, is one of the best - it's a true international contest with worldwide entrants, and is also quite neutral, since Switzerland is not a major olive oil producing country. (Di Bennardo won the gold award in 2004 and placed third in 2006.) Winning an award can mean a lot to a small producer.

At a time when giant international corporations dominate the food manufacturing business, it's quite interesting to see how a small company can push itself forward. It's not just about how good something tastes - it's how it's sold. Prior to Giovanni's attempts, his uncle sold most if not all of his oil production to local outlets in Sicily. Now they sell almost all of it to restaurants and gourmet stores in Switzerland, and they've just contracted with a distributor in New York to sell to the U.S. market.

I have a feeling that they have a good chance to be quite successful.

The Di Bennardo olive oil isn't being sold outside of Switzerland yet though they are just now branching out to other markets. In Zürich you can buy it at Jelmoli, Marinello, and the Wednesday specality food market in the Hauptbahnhof, as well as directly from the the web site.

A few other olive oil facts

The best olive oil is made from unripe olives, because the riper the olive, the more moisture it contains, and the less concentrated the taste. Also ripe olives oxidize much faster, making the oil too acidic.
The best olive oil olives are picked by hand, which ensures that the fruit is not bruised. (I forgot to get a picture of the wooden olive picker...I want one, it's cute!)
Harvest time for the unripe olives is October. This means that the olive oil pressed that season comes to market around January to March. Unlike red wine, olive oil does not age well - it's best consumed up to a year after production if filtered, and up to 90 days if unfiltered/cloudy. Check for either a manufacturing date or a 'best by' date.
Modern olive oil production ensures that the olives are not exposed to air. Olive oil production is a lot about controlling and suppressing the level of acidity.
Cheap olive oils are often blended with other oils in order to meet the maximum allowed acidity level (0.8%) allowed by the European Union.
Top quality oils will often have a batch number printed on the label, in case there is a problem; the maker can track problems by that number.
The major olive oil producing countries are Italy, France, Spain and Greece, but many other countries produce it too, such as Turkey, Israel and Australia. (There are small scale olive oil producers in southern Switzerland too.)
I asked Giovanni about the differences between oils from different regions of Italy. He said that in his opinion, the oils from Tuscany tend to be heavier or richer, making them suited to the local cuisine; the oils from Liguria are light; and the oils from Sicily are very fruity. He may be biased but it would be interesting to compare them. (For what it's worth, Nigella Lawson mentions several times in her books that she loves Ligurian olive oil.)
Further reading: Olive oil tasting resources at aromadictionary.com, and an olive oil tasting account on 101cookbooks.com. (There they used shot glasses, but to me the wine glass makes better sense, since you can really get your nose in there and sniff.). Also, Trader Joe's guide to olive oil(PDF) is pretty good.