What is it? Stew or sauce? You can eat it like a stew, the main serving of soup/stew like consistency full of protein, veggies, and fat. Or you could treat it like a sauce, adorning pasta pieces. Stew would make it seem like it would stand on its own though in which it would be pretty rich. Piece of bread on the side would help, but then what’s the difference between bread on the side or “pasta” on the side? Technically it’s not too different, but mental emphasis surely changes how we perceive it. Or is it proportion? Carb to stew/sauce?
Anyways, I made it and it turned out ok. There was flavor. It was meaty. It wasn’t too fatty/greasy. What else could you ask for? More it seems, at least I wasn’t satisfied. And still not. (Most of it is in my fridge if anyone wants to try). BUT I want even more flavor, more depth, more richness. I used to think (naively) that you could make something better by stewing longer and lower, that the inherent flavors in all the different ingredients would emerge, develop, and merge in this special state. Maybe this is still the case, but I don’t know what I’m missing.
I did once make something pretty amazing, a french onion soup that far exceeded my expectations in flavor, depth, and richness. I will concede that there was probably an insane amount of butter (a whole stick I think?) and I used some extremely rich beef broth (leftover from braised short rib), but the number of actual ingredients seemed small. I want to attribute the greatness of that dish to the number of hours I spent stirring onions on the stove over very low heat (a couple) but I’m wondering if it’s ultimately down to the quality and kind of the individual ingredients. For example a simply seasoned (salt and pepper) prime piece of steak will outperform any heavily seasoned, herb butter basted steak of middling quality.
Back to the bolognese, and what I think could’ve went better. If I were to poorly extrapolate from the french onion soup, I needed more brown. The flavor of roast. Crusts. Heartiness, weight, and substance. This is tough to get from something stewy and saucy though, water and liquids don’t typically brown and develop those flavor. Try roasting a pan of water. But really with all the ingredients in a pot of liquid (oils and juices from vegetables and meats) it’s hard to caramellize and brown ingredients.
(Another aside, what’s the difference between frying and other forms of browning? Initially it seemed different just because the food is immersed in a liquid (oil/fat) instead of direct contact with hot air or surface, but in this case it’s a hot liquid. The important part though is probably just the temperature you can put in contact with food, in which case it’s probably not too different. It probably doesn’t matter the physical state of the medium in which you’re transferring heat.)
Back to our bubbling pot. Bubbles.. that would indicate some liquid in which heat/steam is being released. Liquid, not all of which is oil/fat, would indicate some amount of water. Water is a pretty good heat regulator, it will keep the temperature of the pot at a certain level (at or around boiling) until it is all evaporated. That’s probably what is preventing browning. Darn.
Next Strategies
Brown all the things! A more difficult proposition than at first blush. For best results probably do all these steps in separate pans/pots. Ground beef probably in the pot the stew/sauce will end up stewing (saucing?) in.
- Ground Beef
The ground beef releases a lot of juices and fat as part of the cooking process. A Kenji recommendation is to not salt before cooking as that would encourage the beef to release more liquid, making the process more difficult. Probably best to also not break it apart first. Or second. Keeping it together as much as possible at first would expose less surface area and hopefully reduce the amount of liquid rendered out.
Very high heat before application of the protein, don’t disturb until crusty browness achieved. Then break apart slightly and repeat the process. Season near the end of the browning process I guess? All food needs seasoning.
- Mire Poix
Veggies, liquid held together with fiber. Mmmm delicious dietary fiber. I could go the same route above with high heat and hope that works, but typically the mire poix is minced pretty finely, and it doesn’t hold together as well as ground meat. It might be time to relive some french onion soup patience.
Medium low heat, salt generously to encourage them to give out their moisture, then gentle stirring to prevent burning. I’ve seen a technique that steams them first (add a little water and cover with a lid) to get everything up to temperature first before you settle into the long slow process.
- Herbs
I threw several different herbs in, sage, rosemary, bay leaves, but i can’t say I could distinguish their flavors at the end. Many factors in play here, herbs were just too few to marginally impact the culmulative flavor, the flavors are there but just not in distinguishable form, or I did something wrong. Note I used fresh sage and rosemary. I probably can’t extend the browning analogy here, but there probably is something I can do to improve/maximize/intensify flavor here as well.
I’ve heard that dried herbs have more flavor than fresh, reduction of moisture intensifying flavor. Pick the herbs several weeks in advance (or just have them available generally) and air dry.
- The Rest
There’s not much browning to be done with the rest of the recipe, they’re mostly liquid. Combine everything in the pot, then low and slow in the oven. Good luck!