My first forays into a Bolognese have not been without bumps in the road. Now, I've put ground beef in a sauce before, but during the past couple months it's been more of a theme. It all started when I brought that hamburg meat. If you make hamburgs, you're also gonna be prone to mix it up a little. I got this hamburg meat at the Key Food. The fattiest I could find, but probably not fatty enough, I think it was chuck. I forget the exact percentage. She was loosely packed, which I think helps make a good hamburg. I'm sure you'll all recall my dealings with the English Muffin. Well, instead of using the hamburg meat just for hamburgs, one night I made what I call a Bolognese. This was a bit ago, and though my memory is hazy, I'm sure I concluded that I hadn't put enough meat in it.
It happened that I had another opportunity to make a Bolognese upon the prompting of a dear critic of my cooking. She likes it alla casserole, that is baked. Though a new batch, the meat was of the same character as previously. A standing order when cooking for said La Exigente is not to burn it, have an inexhaustible supply of jalapenos, copious amounts of garlic, and a member of the onion family. Accordingly I brought myself some rigoatta cheese, copious amounts of fresh jalapenos, some medium quality parmesan, shallots, Polly-O brand whole milk mozzarella, and lots of garlic. I opted for the DeCecco rigatoni, which are almost large enough to fill with the rigoatta. I probably used the standard Classico brand tomato and basil as my base.
First I sauteed the hamburg meat, adding no oil. The ground was lose and it easily broke apart into finer pieces. I, personally, was happy with this. I added the garlic, shallots, jalapenos, and sauteed them too. I thought things were going fairly well. It was not lost on me that I had put what I deemed to be not enough of the hamburg meat in the last time. This time was different though, as there were 2 diners, and it was to be baked. Anyway, I certainly thought I was being generous with the hamburg meat. I have a tendency to over do it when I'm cooking for more than myself, and so, on the other side of checks and balances stood that awareness. I believe I cut up the shallots in the style of southern asia mentioned previously, not in a strictly western style. I think these were the french style shallots, not the ones I got at the dual specialty store, and herself expressed some interest in the new cutting technique. After the saute-ing, which occurred in the cast iron skillet, which is rather large and suitable for oven use, I stopped the cooking by adding the tomato sauce and turning off the heat. As I was cooking the rigatoni, I added some pasta water into the mix. I didn't cook the rigatoni thoroughly as they'll be baked.
I am ever aware that rigoatta cheese is ruined by too much heat. A problem with a baked, dare I say it, Ziti-type dish is that in the baking the creaminess of the rigoatta is easily destroyed. And it's the creaminess that makes rigoatta rigoatta. So, in my mind most of the work will be done before the oven. When the rigatoni was deemed ready I added it to the skillet, mixed in some parmesan and rigoatta, and topped with a layer of sliced mozzarella, and into the oven it went (I later learned that shredded mozzarella is the right kind to use). I took it out of the oven as soon as I saw signs of browning of the mozzarella, and as a mixed blessing there was some bubbling too. Of course I have the prescription against burning, but also I don't want to cook the rigoatta.
The meal was served. Although she was happy with the al dente character of the rigatoni, it was determined that the meat was watered down, and there wasn't enough of it. The meal was "disgusting". She was perplexed how anybody could serve watered down meat and questioned me about if I broke up the meat when I sauteed it, and if I sauteed it by itself before I put the sauce in. I admitted that I broke up the meat to some degree. She was quite taken aback by that, because it's supposed to be in chunks, like a particular chili we get. My defense was that it was a loose grind, and I wasn't aware that meat in Bolognese need come in chunks. I can understand how different people could like theirs in different ways, but not that it was wrong to not have chunks. The only thing that saved me was that as I was taking the plate away she discovered a small chunk on the plate. Otherwise, she said, it would have been all over for us.
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