How long should a ragù cook, and does it really need milk?

A ragù is not a tomato sauce with mince in it. It is a meat sauce with a small amount of tomato, and the difference is almost entirely time. What the hours are doing is not concentrating flavour — that happens in the first thirty minutes — but breaking down collagen in the meat so the sauce turns from gritty and separate into something smooth and coating.

What you'll need

• Minced beef, or beef and pork
• Pancetta (optional)
• Onion, carrot, celery
• Whole milk
• White or red wine (optional)
• Tinned tomatoes or passata
• Heavy pan with a lid

Step by step

1. Soften a fine soffritto slowly in butter and oil.Onion, carrot and celery chopped very small, cooked gently for ten to fifteen minutes until soft and sweet without browning. Pancetta or a little bacon can go in first. This is the flavour base and rushing it is a false economy.
2. Brown the mince properly, in batches if the pan is crowded.Break it up and let it colour rather than steaming grey. Browning is where a great deal of the savour comes from, and it is the second stage people rush.
3. Add the milk first and let it cook away almost completely.About 250ml for 500g of meat, added before any wine or tomato, simmered until the pan is nearly dry. It looks odd and it is not optional in a classical Bolognese. Adding it before the acid is the whole point — milk added to an already acidic sauce curdles.
4. Add wine and reduce it away too.A glass of white or red, simmered until the pan is nearly dry again. Each of these stages concentrates rather than dilutes, which is why they are done one at a time.
5. Add a modest amount of tomato and enough stock or water to cover.A classical ragù uses far less tomato than a British Bolognese — a tablespoon or two of purée and half a tin of tomatoes for 500g of meat. Then liquid to cover, and a bay leaf.
6. Simmer at the barest bubble, partly covered, for two to three hours.So slow that a bubble breaks the surface every few seconds. Top up with water or stock if it gets too dry. This is the stage that makes it a ragù, and there is no shortcut that produces the same texture.
7. Season at the end, and rest it if you can.Salt only now, since it has been concentrating for hours. A ragù made a day ahead and reheated is noticeably better, and it freezes perfectly.

Tips

• The milk is doing two things: the calcium and the proteins tenderise the meat, and the dairy rounds off the acidity of the tomato and wine. Cream at the end is not a substitute — it enriches but does not tenderise.
• A cheaper, fattier mince makes a better ragù than lean steak mince. Fat carries flavour and the long cooking renders it out where you can skim it.
• Use a heavy pan with a well-fitting lid, set slightly ajar. A thin pan scorches during a three-hour simmer.
• Ninety minutes gives a good sauce. Three hours gives a noticeably better one. Beyond about four hours there is little further gain.
• Ragù freezes very well and does not suffer at all, because there is no starch or emulsion in it to break down.

Common mistakes

• Adding the milk after the tomato — Milk added to an acidic sauce curdles into grains. It goes in first, before the wine and the tomato, for exactly that reason.
• Using a whole tin of tomatoes for 500g of mince — That produces a tomato sauce with mince in it. A ragù is a meat sauce and the tomato is a seasoning.
• Simmering hard to finish it sooner — Collagen breakdown is a function of time at temperature, not of vigour. A hard boil dries the sauce and toughens the meat rather than speeding anything up.

Questions people ask