Pasta alla bolognese is considered among the most popular Italian dishes in the world. Italian culinary history acknowledges Pellergrino Artusi to be the first to document the recipe for this sauce in his cookbook, “Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well”. It is, however, different from the bolognese we all know. There are no tomatoes! There are no italian spices like oregano or basil! There’s no garlic!
I first encountered this recipe in Stanley Tucci’s series and got curious so I searched for the original recipe online. I came across this paper from the International Journal of Art and Humanities (vol 4 no 3 July 2018 by Thomas Gwinner) that published the English translation of the original recipe. Here is the original recipe: (enclosed in parenthesis are my modifications and the weight/volume of ingredients that I used to attempt to standardize it)
500g FRESH PASTA, macaroni or any wide pasta (I used 100 g of dry pappardelle but it was still too much for the sauce so next time I will just use 60g)
150g CHOPPED LEAN VEAL l (I used ground lamb, it was out of this world delicious! Another substitute can be lean ground pork)
50g PANCETTA
1/2 a CARROT (50g)
1/4 of a regular ONION (50g)
2 palm length ribs of CELERY (12g)
Pinch of FLOUR (2tsp)
Pot of STOCK (250mL beef stock)
NUTMEG, to taste (1/8tsp)
SALT (quantity depends on how salty the pancetta is)
PEPPER, to taste
PARMIGIANO REGGIANO (1/3 cup finely grated)
This tastes nothing like the bolognese that we are used to and it doesn’t take hours to make but it was exploding in flavor. Try it!
#originalbolognese #searchingforitaly #pellegrinoartusi #artusirecipe
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