Susa Bolu

Summary

Prep Time	45 mins
Total Time	45 mins
Course	Main Course
Cuisine	European
Servings (Default: 4)

Ingredients

Instructions

A few tips in advance: It is important that the minced beef has a small amount of fat, so please do not use tartare. And it`s just as important to me to use homemade beef broth made from beef, bones and soup vegetables for this dish. All attempts with purchased broths and stocks have never tickled out that wonderful beef taste (I cook broth about every 6 weeks in stock anyway, so net 2 liters, that`s only worth it in large quantities anyway).
And now it starts:
Peel or clean the roots and dice very finely. Then fry in a large cast iron saucepan (important!) In a mixture of clarified butter and olive oil so that it takes on a light color and develops the first roasted aromas. Then stir a free space in the middle of the pot and add 2 tablespoons of tomato paste to it. Heat the whole thing on very high heat for a short time (max. 2 minutes) - the tomato paste must caramelize well, but the vegetables on the edge of the pan must not burn - this is a little balancing act. Then turn back the heat and stir together the tomato paste and vegetables.
Next to it, sear the minced meat in the left out beef pulp in a pan - I sear the meat in portions of approx. 300 g each, because otherwise the meat will not get hot quickly enough and will loll. When the meat portion is fried crispy, pour the vegetables into the saucepan. Finally, fry the rest of the tomato paste in the pan so that it caramelizes properly. Then turn down the heat and deglaze with a little wine or broth - also add to the saucepan.
Now add the spices and herbs to the meat and keep adding liquid (alternating white wine and beef broth) and simmer it gently over a low heat. This process must take at least 6 hours - so check, stir and top up with liquid every half hour. It must not be so hot that the mixture sticks to the bottom of the pot. This works better in a cast-iron saucepan than in a stainless steel saucepan (if you don`t have a cast-iron saucepan, you just have to keep an eye on the dish).
Incidentally, it is even better to stop the cooking process after 6 hours, leave the saucepan to stand overnight and reheat the ragù the next day.
Important: Everything can be varied, only one thing not - the preparation time! A bolu tastes better the longer it simmers gently. 12 hours are not a problem either - on the contrary. 6 hours are the ab_so_lu_te minimum !!!
All variations with real tomatoes, canned tomatoes, tomato puree as well as with red wine and anything else than beef broth (e.g. vegetable broth or veal broth) have meanwhile been discarded as not leading to the goal. Other vegetables such as red peppers or chilli peppers only stayed for a short time in my Bolu recipe canon (fresh red chilli peppers in small doses may still work - I now taste much better without them).
Since this dish is quite a labor-intensive affair, I always make at least double the amount and freeze the leftovers, the dish can do that just fine.
Despite the white wine in the recipe, we recommend a decent red wine, a Chianti, a simple Bordeaux from the Médoc or a not too thin German Pinot Noir.
And finally: there is no such thing as ONE recipe for Sauce Bolognaise. There will be as many recipes as there are housewives and cooks in Italy and elsewhere. It is important and the same for all good Bolu recipes: only the very best ingredients and plenty of time!
I`ve tried a lot and I`ve found MY recipe, which is a mixture of several Italian cookbooks, oral tradition from an Italian friend (OK, actually Sarde, but maybe we can just accept it * g *) and try it out on my own.