Tagliatelle al ragù recipe: Bologna's slow-cooked meat sauce

This tagliatelle al ragù recipe follows the ragù alla bolognese that Bologna has put on file: pancetta, beef, a soffritto of onion, carrot and celery, wine, a little tomato and milk, cooked for three hours. The key is patience: hard browning, then a simmer so gentle that the collagen melts and the sauce turns glossy and dark orange.

Any serious tagliatelle al ragù recipe starts from one document. The Accademia Italiana della Cucina registered its version with the Bologna Chamber of Commerce on 17 October 1982 and revised it on 20 April 2023, swapping the cartella, a skirt cut few butchers still sell, for collagen-rich shoulder or brisket, and making milk optional. Bologna's table is business too: this week its trade-fair operator bought into Gambero Rosso.

Ingredients

Ragù is not a tomato sauce with meat in it: it is meat, slowly persuaded by a little tomato.

• 500 g beef shoulder or skirt, coarsely minced
• 120 g pancetta, in one piece
• 1 small onion (about 80 g)
• 1 carrot (about 70 g)
• 1 celery stalk (about 50 g)
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 150 ml dry white wine
• 250 g tomato passata
• 1 tbsp double-concentrated tomato paste
• 200 ml whole milk
• 400 ml light meat stock, hot
• Salt, pepper and nutmeg
• 600 g fresh egg tagliatelle
• 30 g unsalted butter
• 60 g Parmigiano Reggiano, grated

Method

1. Chop the pancetta finely and melt it in the oil in a heavy casserole over low heat for 5 minutes, so it renders without crisping.
2. Add the onion, carrot and celery, cut into 3 mm dice, and sweat for 10 minutes until soft. Browned soffritto turns bitter; sweated, it turns sweet.
3. Raise the heat, add the beef and break it up. Cook for 10 to 12 minutes, until the juices evaporate and the meat crackles: wet meat stews grey, dry meat browns.
4. Add the wine and let it almost evaporate, scraping the pan; its acidity lifts the browned juices.
5. Dissolve the concentrate in a ladle of stock and add it with the passata. Tomato seasons the meat, never drowns it.
6. Turn the heat to the minimum, half cover and simmer for 2 h 30 min to 3 h, adding stock when the sauce tightens. At a bare murmur the collagen dissolves and the meat turns tender.
7. In the last hour, add the milk a little at a time, then season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Milk softens the tomato's acidity.
8. Boil the tagliatelle for 2 to 3 minutes in salted water, then toss them in a wide pan with the butter, most of the ragù and a splash of cooking water. Rough egg pasta grips the sauce; top with the rest and the Parmigiano.

Tagliatelle al ragù with Lambrusco, and a day's rest

Ragù is better the next day and keeps four days in the fridge or three months frozen, so this tagliatelle al ragù recipe is worth doubling. Pour a dry Lambrusco di Sorbara, whose bubbles and acidity clean the palate, or a young Sangiovese di Romagna.

Lighter and in season: our tagliatelle ai porcini recipe.