Haven’t grilled/smoked all week – it’s been rainy off and on and busy with a multitude of life challenges at the moment. Despite that, good eats always takes the edge off, so I decided to repurpose my traditional Italian meat sauce into a neo-Bolognese sauce, with added beef marrowbones for extra flavor. Instead of cooking the sauce on the stovetop, I decided to slow cook it in the oven in a clay pot.
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[FONT="]This MSU experiment began with:[/FONT]
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[FONT="]A traditional [/FONT][FONT="]mirepoix (1 small white onion, 1/4 stalk celery, 1/3 carrot, all chopped very fine, then sauteed in EVOO till translucent)
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[FONT="]28 oz can of plum tomatoes, blended
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[FONT="]8 chopped garlic cloves
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[FONT="]Browned ground beef & sweet Italian sausage, 1/2 lb each
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[FONT="]2 bay leaves
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[FONT="]A small handful of oregano and Italian seasoning [/FONT]
The sauce cooked for over 3 hours, and I added salt at the 1 hour point. When the sauce was done, I pulled the bones from the sauce, dug out the marrow and added it to the sauce. Boiled some rigatoni to a bit past al dente, then did a quick high heat finish of the sauce and pasta with some Amish butter in a large saucepan to get the pasta fully coated. Served with a bit of fresh Italian parsley right before bowls hit the table:
The verdict? I will be retiring my go to Italian meat sauce method for this moving forward. The depth of flavor was incomparable, plus cooking in the oven is less work.
[FONT="]
[/FONT]
[FONT="]This MSU experiment began with:[/FONT]
[FONT="]
[/FONT]
[FONT="]A traditional [/FONT][FONT="]mirepoix (1 small white onion, 1/4 stalk celery, 1/3 carrot, all chopped very fine, then sauteed in EVOO till translucent)
[/FONT]
[FONT="]28 oz can of plum tomatoes, blended
[/FONT]
[FONT="]8 chopped garlic cloves
[/FONT]
[FONT="]Browned ground beef & sweet Italian sausage, 1/2 lb each
[/FONT]
[FONT="]2 bay leaves
[/FONT]
[FONT="]A small handful of oregano and Italian seasoning [/FONT]
The sauce cooked for over 3 hours, and I added salt at the 1 hour point. When the sauce was done, I pulled the bones from the sauce, dug out the marrow and added it to the sauce. Boiled some rigatoni to a bit past al dente, then did a quick high heat finish of the sauce and pasta with some Amish butter in a large saucepan to get the pasta fully coated. Served with a bit of fresh Italian parsley right before bowls hit the table:
The verdict? I will be retiring my go to Italian meat sauce method for this moving forward. The depth of flavor was incomparable, plus cooking in the oven is less work.
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