Lidia Bastianich Makes Bolognese Sauce

Ingredients

• 1 oz dry porcini mushrooms
• 4 lb ground turkey
• 2 cups dry white wine
• 6 oz bacon or pancetta (optional)
• 5 fat garlic cloves, peeled
• 2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 medium onions, minced in a food processor or finely chopped
• 2 large stalks celery, minced in a food processor or chopped
• 1 carrot, shredded
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt, plus more to taste
• 2 cups dry red wine
• 2 Tbsp tomato paste
• 2 cups canned plum tomatoes and juices, passed through a food mill or crushed by hand
• 8 to 12 cups hot turkey or vegetable broth or plain hot water, or more if needed
• Freshly ground black pepper to finish the sauce

Instructions

1. You will need a food processor and a 10-to-12-inch-diameter heavy-bottom saucepan or Dutch oven, 6-quart capacity.
2. Soak porcini mushrooms in 2 cups of hot water for 10 minutes.
3. To prepare the meat and pestata:
   Put all 4 pounds of ground meat into a large mixing bowl. With your fingers, crumble and loosen it all up. Pour white wine over meat, and work it all through your fingers again so it’s evenly moistened.
4. To make the pestata:
   Cut bacon or pancetta slices into 1-inch pieces, and put in the bowl of a food processor with peeled garlic. Process into a fine paste and remove.
5. In the same processor add drained porcini mushrooms, reserving water from soaking, and chop.
6. Cooking the sauce base:
   Pour olive oil into the heavy saucepan, and scrape in all of pestata. Set pan over medium-high heat, break up pestata, and stir it around the pan bottom to start rendering fat. Cook for 3 minutes or more, stirring often, until bacon and garlic are sizzling and aromatic and there’s a good deal of fat in pan. Stir minced onions into fat, and cook for a couple of minutes, until sizzling and starting to sweat. Stir in celery and carrot, and cook vegetables until wilted and golden, stirring frequently and thoroughly over medium-high heat, about 5 minutes or more.
7. Turn heat up a notch, push vegetables off to the side, and plop all meat into pan; sprinkle on salt. Let meat brown for a few minutes on pan bottom, then stir, spread, and toss with a sturdy spoon, mixing it into vegetables; make sure every bit of meat browns and begins releasing fat and juices. Soon meat liquid will almost cover meat itself. Cook at high heat, stirring often, until all that liquid has disappeared, even in bottom of pan. This will take half an hour to 45 minutes, depending on heat and width of pan. Stir occasionally, and as liquid level diminishes, lower heat so meat doesn’t burn. When all meat liquid has been cooked off, pour in 2 cups red wine. Add chopped porcini mushroom and reserved liquid, making sure not to pour in sediment on bottom.
8. Raise heat if you’ve lowered it, and stir meat as wine comes to a boil. Cook until wine has almost completely evaporated, about 5 minutes. Now drop 2 tablespoons tomato paste into a clear space on pan bottom. Toast it for a minute in the hot spot, then stir to blend it with meat, and let it caramelize for another 2 or 3 minutes. Pour in crushed tomatoes, and stir; slosh tomato container out with a cup of hot broth, and pour that in, too.
9. Bring liquid to a boil, stirring meat, and let liquid almost boil off, 5 minutes more. Pour in 2 cups of hot broth, stir well, and add more if needed to cover meat. Bring it to an active simmer, cover pan, and adjust heat to maintain slow, steady cooking, with small bubbles perking all over surface of sauce. At this point, the Bolognese should cook for 3 hours. Check pot every 20 minutes, and add hot broth as needed to cover meat. The liquid level should be reducing by 1 1/2 to 2 cups between additions: If it’s falling much faster, and it takes more than 2 cups to cover meat, lower heat to slow evaporation. If sauce level drops slowly or not at all, raise heat and set cover ajar to speed its concentration. Stir well at every addition.
10. During final cooking, you want to reduce level of liquid — at end, meat should no longer be covered with sauce but appear suspended in a thick, flowing medium. If meat is still submerged by a lot of liquid, remove cover to cook off moisture quickly. A few minutes before end of cooking, taste a bit of meat and sauce, and add salt if you want. Grind 1 teaspoon of black pepper right into sauce, stir it in, and cook about 5 minutes before removing pan from heat. If you’ll be using sauce right away, spoon off fat from surface, or stir it in as is done traditionally.
11. Otherwise, let sauce cool, then chill it thoroughly and lift off solidified fat. Store sauce for several days in refrigerator, or freeze it (in measured amounts for different dishes) for use within a few months.

** Notes from WeightWatchers.com