Tagliatelle al Ragù Bolognese Classico

Bologna, Emilia-Romagna

The registered recipe of the Accademia Italiana della Cucina (1982 deposit at the Bologna Chamber of Commerce): egg tagliatelle with a ragù of beef and/or pork mince, soffritto, white wine, whole milk, a small amount of tomato concentrate (not passata), and a 2-hour minimum simmer. The tagliatelle must be made fresh from 00 flour and egg, rolled to exactly 8mm width when cooked (1/12,270th of the height of the Asinelli Tower). The ragù is not a tomato sauce with meat — it is a meat sauce with a small amount of tomato.

• Long-cooked meat sauce with wine and aromatic vegetables — the French parallel to the slow-cooked northern Italian ragù → Daube provençale with pasta French
• Slow-cooked meat sauce for pasta with wine and tomato — the Mediterranean parallel → Makaronia me kima (pastitsio sauce) Greek
• The South Italian counterpart: also a long-cooked meat sauce, but built on a massive onion base with whole cuts → Ragù Napoletano Neapolitan

Rich, round, barely tomato-tinted meat sauce on golden egg tagliatelle — 4 hours of patience that produces a sauce where beef, pork, milk, and wine become indistinguishable from each other