Pasta with meat sauce is something I crave on regular basis. All different types of pasta, beef vs. pork, marinara vs. milk/cream based, they are all delicious in their own way. Each time I make a pasta with meat sauce dish it ends up being slightly different, but the recipe below is one of my favorite creations.

Bolognese sauce, known in Italian as ragù (alla) bolognese, or simply ragù, is a meat-based sauce originating from Bologna, Italy. In the absence of tagliatelle, it can also be used with other broad, flat pasta shapes, such as pappardelle or fettuccine. Genuine ragù alla bolognese is a slowly cooked sauce, and its preparation involves several techniques, including sweating, sautéing and braising. Ingredients include a characteristic soffritto of onion, celery and carrot, different types of minced or finely chopped beef, often alongside small amounts of fatty pork. Red wine and a small amount of tomato concentrate or tomatoes are added, and the dish is then gently simmered at length to produce a thick sauce.

INGREDIENTS

  • 1/2 Tagliatelle Pasta
  • 1 lb Ground Beef
  • 2 Carrots
  • 1 Stalk Celery
  • 1 Onion
  • 3 Cloves Garlic
  • 1 Jar Rao's Marina Sauce
  • 4 Sage Leaves
  • 1 Sprig Rosemary
  • Flat Leaf Italian Parsley
  • Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • Beef Fat (Optional)
  • 1/2 Cup Red Wine
  • Fresh Cracked Pepper
  • EVOO

Start by dicing up all of the ingredients for the soffritto (carrots, celery, and onions). Try to keep the sizes of each fairly consistent so that they cook evenly. Add about two tablespoons of olive oil to the bottom of a dutch oven and sautée the soffritto along with the chopped sage and rosemary. Once the soffritto has just started to brown, add the chopped garlic and continue cooking until the garlic starts to brown.

Something I've found is that if you really want to achieve a good maillard reaction on the meat, while simultaneously cooking the soffritto properly you really need to cook them in separate pans. Alternatively, you could cook the meat first, remove it from the pan once it's sufficiently browned, and then cook the soffritto. Either way.

Once the meat has been browned and the soffritto has finished sauteing, recombine them in the dutch oven and add the marinara sauce.

Once the egg has finished cooking, it's just a matter of assembling. Take the toasted piece of bread while it's still hot and smear a generous portion of the goat cheese on top. Then place the basil leaves on top of the cheese, followed by the egg. At this point all that's needed to finish is adding additional salt and pepper to taste, and perhaps a bit of EVOO on top as well. Breakfast of champions.