Pasta Bolognese

Every now and then, I hear comments on how wonderful this one meal at this one place was just simply amazing. Followed immediately by someone saying that they make that at home all the time and it's really not hard to make. Often what's missed by the second person is the fact that the dish was composed better than the first person has had before. Plenty of people who cook can create a lot of different dishes that exist everywhere. But sometimes we get that one particular dish that we've had a hundred times, but it really just stood out at that one place.

What often makes one dish better than another may simply be technique, but it's often the ingredients. Pasta bolognese is probably a great meal that can be used as an example. To some people, homemade bolognese is going to be browning some ground beef, adding the jar of sauce, and ladling that over some box pasta from the store. My brain certainly has that flavor recorded in the archives, but it's not what comes to mind for me these days.

Pasta bolognese is a once a week or every other week kind of meal around here. While it's an easier dish to pull together, it's not a quick meal if things haven't been made ahead of time to make it the wonderful dish that it is. The simple version of the recipe is meat, mirepoix, tomatoes, pasta. But, what do you use for meat? What about the pasta? Any other additions to the sauce to round out flavors or bring more to the party? How fresh are the ingredients? How much has been prepped before to build a better flavor now?

So, if the simple version is listed above, what's the complicated version? I'll give you my list of ingredients, but it's going to be followed by some very important notes.

• 3-4 oz home cured bacon

• 1/2 lb homemade sausage

• 1 medium to large onion

• 1 medium carrot

• 1 celery stalk

• 2-3 cloves garlic

• 2 cups diced tomatoes

• 6 oz tomato paste

• 4-6 oz Beaujolais wine

• 1 large dollop homemade crème fraîche

• 3-6 servings homemade pasta (something closer to fettuccine than linguini, I'd have to ask a real Italian what it would be)

If you notice, there's a lot of homemade and fresh stuff in that list. In reality, the closer I can get to keeping the dish with the homemade and fresh ingredients, the more it's going to be that remarkable thing that we just want to keep coming back to. Often though, things get replaced because I didn't have the time to make them.

• Home cured bacon lardon? It's pretty much regularly in my freezer in 3-4oz vacuum sealed portions. But it can easily be substituted for a couple of thick sliced pieces of bacon from the store.

• Homemade sausage? I'm currently out and haven't made a new batch in a couple years. But, I buy equal parts mild and hot italian sausage from a local place and freeze them in half pound packages to use in different dishes.

• 2 cups diced tomatoes happen about once every 15-20 times. It's more likely that I'll use a can of organic diced tomatoes from Costco.

• Almost any red wine can be used in place of the Beaujolais, and I always have some kind of red wine in the house. But, I really do use that 99% of the time. It blends with food and works in cooking better than anything.

• Homemade crème fraîche? That's actually very normal around here, but a bit of heavy cream or a dollop of sour cream will work really well.

• The homemade pasta is a standard in our house as well. I make large batches and then freeze it in 100g spirals. 100g of fresh pasta per person has typically been a great reference point for me. I count the number of people for dinner, and grab that many spirals from the freezer. There's often enough left for me to have lunch the next day, but not always. Store bought pasta works if that's all you can do.

In my honest opinion, start with whatever you can for cooking. Decide what you do and don't like. Decide what impacts the dish the most for you and what's most worth your time while aiming for that ideal perfect dish. Over time, you may find that making large batches of certain ingredients is worth it. It's a bit like meal prepping...you're just prepping your custom ingredients to make better food.

After all that, a bit of parmesan and pecorino cheese and a portion of freshly made sourdough baguette rounds things out for me.