Life Happens And Then We Cook: Christmas Eve Bolognese Sauce
Hi friends! It’s us! It’s Sisters In Geek!
No, for real! We’re here! We really are!
We’re going to cook things! Food things! Because forever, we’ve been talking about how we want to share recipes here for food we love, or at least things we cook or eat, and what better time to start than with a great recipe for a cozy Christmas/holiday/special occasion family meal?
But first: We definitely apologize for our absence. Alas, sometimes, life happens. Sometimes you have an entire year that’s actually pretty crap. And unfortunately that’s the 2018 that we’ve had here at SiG HQ.
We’ve experienced depression and despair and severe anxiety. We’ve had major day job changes. We’ve had plumbing floods followed by hasty and badly planned moves. We’ve had drama with fur kids and drama with human kids. We’ve been exhausted by the state of the world and the country. Yeah, we squeezed in a couple of decent vacations and some good concerts and some fun times with friends. But we also lost a best friend to cancer back in October and honestly y’all, it’s just been a dark year.
And to top it all off, some of us (me, it’s totally me) have also been diagnosed with and treated for tracheal stenosis — a fun little condition in which your major airway narrows for NO REASON AT ALL over a long period of time and eventually you just. can’t. breathe. but for seven years your doctors keep treating you for asthma and can’t figure out why it won’t come under control and then finally you get a new doctor and he’s all annoyed at seeing you four times in one year for asthmatic wheezing and sends you to a pulmonologist who is all, “This isn’t in your lungs,” and sends you for a series of cat scans (spoiler: there are no cats) of your chest and neck to see what’s blocking your breathing and your best friends are pretty convinced there is probably an alien living in your lungs but no, it turns out your trachea just SUCKS.
I am lucky in that my new job came with an improvement upon the last health insurance plan I had and none of this was going to break the bank, and I was also able to see whichever specialist or surgeon my pulmonologist and ENT recommended for me. And that means I got to see a leading expert in the field of tracheal issues and am now under his care, and rather than having a major surgery, he was able to begin by doing a bronchoscopy and tracheal dilation under full anesthesia. It was just a quick outpatient thing on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, and I was actually breathing way better immediately upon waking from the anesthesia. It will narrow again, and depending on how long that takes, we’ll make decisions about surgery versus further dilation procedures. But for now, I can breathe pretty damn well and will take the opportunity to get in better shape and wrap my head around possibly having major surgery somewhere down the road.
(Side note: Don’t take breathing for granted. It’s a miraculous thing, breathing. Take it from someone who KNOWS.)
I’m also lucky to have the very best friends and family IN THE WHOLE WORLD who all came running to take care of me in the last weeks leading up to my surgical procedure — basically it got to a point where the only energy I had all went to making it to and from work each day, and once I was home in the evening, I could barely get off the couch. And my husband had to leave town for a few days to take care of his mom after she had a hip replacement, so I needed major help while he was gone just to feed myself. And our friends were more than up for the task — especially my two Sisters In Geek, Megan and Carolyn.
Honestly I can’t recall feeling so wrapped in love before.
Also my friend Gena shared her dog Trudy with me — look at us:
She snuggled with me for THREE HOURS. Obviously we are best friends now.
Anyway, all of that combined to make me finish out the year feeling hopeful that some better times are ahead for all of us. They have to be, because I damn sure don’t want to see worse!
And it’s nearly Christmas! And you know what that means!
FOOD!
I know some of you guessed presents. But no. It means food.
We all have our traditions for the food we bake and cook for major holidays, of course. In my family, we have French Canadian meat pies on Christmas Day, because our family is from just down the road from the French speaking part of Canada. My mom remembers her French Canadian neighbors putting meat pies into the oven as they headed off for midnight mass on Christmas Eve, and having a big family meal ready to go upon their return. So the pies were always a Christmas thing in our house, although we saved them for Christmas Day, for our big meal in the late afternoon after we’ve all gathered and opened gifts and played with our new toys for a while. And on Christmas Eve, it was always just anything goes for many years, until I realized about 10 years ago that it was hardly fair for my mom to have to put together a Christmas Day meal for the whole gang PLUS figure out something for Christmas Eve. So we started having my parents over to our house for supper and games on Christmas Eve, and the first time I did this it was with creating traditions in mind. I wanted it to be a special thing that we all look forward to. And the best way to make a thing memorable is by making great food.
That first year, I did a lot of reading up on traditional Christmas Eve meals from around the world but kept coming back to wanting to make Italian food. Italian food reminds me of my best friend growing up and special meals with her family. It’s very comforting. And I had been missing out on a lot of good Italian stuff since discovering I was severely intolerant to dairy several years before, and one of the things I had missed the most was this bizarrely great bolognese sauce I used to eat at the Macaroni Grill, of all places. So I set about learning how to make bolognese sauce of my own.
And now every year on Christmas Eve I make this wonderful traditional bolognese sauce for dinner and every year everyone asks me for the recipe. And every year I think I should share the recipe, but the problem is, there isn’t really a recipe — there is more a cooking procedure. So one year, while I was putting it together, I actually had the presence of mind to take photos so that I could post step by step instructions! And instead of the ten million rants about various subjects I have brewing inside my head that I could have written here, I’m posting about making bolognese sauce. And then you guys can all make it too. Or on a special occasion. Because it is for sure a special occasion sauce — the cooking time alone isn’t for the faint of heart. And there is nothing low fat or healthy about it. And really if you’re not a fan of pork and bacon-y things, this is NOT the sauce for you. To leave those out would make just a boring old meat sauce.
I have made a few adjustments over the years. The biggest revelation was that fresh oregano is way better than dried (I know, I KNOW).
Below are the steps and some photos of how things should look along the way; a list of ingredients is at the end.
(Bear in mind that this ain’t no food blog, so the photos that follow might not be particularly pretty. I promise to improve upon that in future food-related posts.)
Step 1: Make a battuto of carrots, celery, and sweet onion (4-6 regular sized carrots, about 6-8 celery stalks including leaves, which add flavor, and 2 small sweet onions or 1 large). This means dice them all really, really small — I pulse mine in the food processor. Saute in olive oil on medium high in a large pot — mine is a 7-quart, I believe (you’re going to cook the entire thing in this one pot). Let it cook till it’s good and fragrant. And then add 4-6 decent sized cloves of garlic (more if you’re really into garlic, but not less than 4), smushed in a garlic press.
Step 2: Add meat! First, 1 pound of diced prosciutto. Decent American grocery stores sell pre-diced prosciutto in their department with the fancy deli meat and bacon and sausage. If you can’t get prosciutto, I would say that the only acceptable substitute is a really nice regular bacon. But not some cheapo Oscar Meyer crap — get some really good stuff. And I wouldn’t sub pancetta — it’s too sweet.
Let the prosciutto cook for a few minutes, till it smells really nice.
Step 3: Keep adding meat! Next, one pound of ground pork. I have used lean before but only because that’s all the store had; normally I wouldn’t have cared.
Cook till the pork is no longer pink:
Step 4: More meat! Add two pounds of ground beef. I usually use one pound that is about 93% lean and one that is just 85% and that seems to work out really well; less lean and you’ll just have more natural broth to work with, which is fine!
(If you are a super daring traditionalist, it’s after this step that you’ll want to add about half a pound of chicken livers. I think chicken livers are disgusting, so I would never.)
Cook till the beef browns. There should be a lot of juices from the meat now:
Step 5: Add peeled tomatoes! You’ll want two large (28 oz) cans; I like Muir Glen because they are actually peeled instead of half-assed peeled like a lot of other brands that shall remain nameless. Cut them into quarters and dump into the pot. Pour in all of the extra tomato juice too.
Mmm!
Step 6: Add some spices. I use about a teaspoon of dried thyme and a tablespoon or so of fresh oregano (about a teaspoon if you’re using dried).
And nutmeg! Besides prosciutto, nutmeg is a key ingredient. When I researched how to make this a few years back, the most intriguing suggestion I found was to use WHOLE nutmeg instead of ground (mostly because I am a lazy ass cook who doesn’t want to spend time grating nutmeg): just drop in four whole cloves of nutmeg, and let them cook down in the sauce. They impart a gorgeous flavor without being overwhelming. Don’t skip nutmeg! But make sure to warn people to look out for the cloves when they’re eating. Or try to find them before you serve.
Step 7: At this point, if you are not allergic to red wine like I am, you would want to deglaze with about 1 cup of red wine. I skip the wine always and have never had a flavor issue, though.
Step 8: Add broth! You don’t want your sauce to be super soupy, nor do you want it to be super thick (unless you’re into that). So start with about two cups of beef broth. And yes, it has to be beef broth. Other broths would make it taste weird. As it brews, you can decide later whether or not to use more; I almost always wind up using an entire box (4 cups).
Step 9: Add a small can of tomato paste. You might add a second one later, if you add more broth.
Step 10: Stir in a few dried or fresh bay leaves. I prefer the fresh ones from the herb section of the store but they were out this time so I just used dried.
Step 11: Let it brew! Three hours at minimum, on medium low heat. It should simmer, but not boil. I always cook mine for at least six hours. Usually I get up first thing Christmas Eve morning and put it together, and pretty much just let it cook all day.
Step 12: Cook some noodles! You want a thick noodle that can hold the heaviness of this sauce. Tagliatelle is traditional, but we also love rigatoni noodles when eating leftovers.
Step 13: Right before serving, grind up some fresh basil and stir it into the sauce.
Step 14: Eat!
Share it with your family and your friends. They will love you more than they already do, and beg you to make this all the time. You will hold it over their heads all year, reminding them how hard it is and how long it takes to cook, only busting it out on holidays and birthdays.
I eat mine without cheese because I can’t have milk, but a little sprinkling of parmesan is really nice on it too. Roasted garlic mushrooms and a Christmassy salad usually round out the meal for us. We also like to have bread with this. In fact our friend Russ swears that this type of sauce is only for dipping bread into and that noodles are completely unnecessary; I think he has an excellent point!
Ingredients List:
6-8 celery stalks including leaves, finely diced
4-6 large carrots, peeled and finely diced (I use a 1/2 lb bag of baby carrots because I am lazy)
1 large sweet onion, finely diced (or 2 small)
1 lb diced prosciutto (see notes in Step 2)
1 lb lean or regular ground pork
2 lbs ground beef (can be extra lean if you want)
2 large (28 oz) cans Muir Glen whole peeled tomatoes (any brand is fine, but this one I can count on actually being peeled when I open the can), cut into quarters, and juice from the can
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried oregano OR a bunch of ground up fresh oregano
Whole nutmeg – 4 cloves (try to remove before serving)
(Optional) 1 cup red wine
2-4 cups of beef broth
4-6 dried or fresh bay leaves (try to remove before serving)
Wide noodles such as Tagliatelle (rigatoni also works)
Fresh basil, ground
Grated parmesan for serving.
This makes a pretty giant pot of sauce — I’ve comfortably fed a group of 10 people before and still had some leftovers.
Other than eating this sauce together next week, we’ve got a lot of stuff we’re excited about and looking forward to in the coming months (uh, Avengers 4: Endgame, anyone???).
And remember: There is always time for hope. Breathe. Get enough sleep. Hug all the dogs and snuggle all the kitties. Surround yourself with people who adore you.
Happy Holidays everyone!