Every time fall hits I instantly want to drop salads and smoothies and go straight into pastas and comfort foods. My Bolognese has been a crowd pleaser for the past few years and I swear it just keeps getting better with age. This summer I made some changes to my diet and the types of food I was putting into my body….
As some of you may know, I haven’t been eating much meat lately. I’ve been limiting my meat intake to either local, free range or ethically raised. Once I started researching cruelty on animals and really started digging deep I couldn’t help but keep going. I saw ONE video and was hooked on finding out more about whether or not what I saw was REAL and if it was TRUE that some animals are so severely treated at such a young age. It brings tears to my eyes just thinking about the poor little things. And well, because of that I have been trying my best to make conscious decisions (as much as possible) on where I buy my meat and finding out how their animals are treated. It has been a HUGE learning curve for me and I know I still have a long way to go before I’m perfect!!!
I went down to the Kelowna Farmers Market and managed to find a lovely pork and beef farmer. I picked up some ground meat of each and of course had to try it in my all time favourite and classic Bolognese sauce. Not only do I feel so much better about this dish and knowing where the meat came from … but you can truly taste the difference in quality and flavour. Trust me … the taste buds on your tongue will be dancing …
Ingredients:
1/8 cup of olive oil
1 pound of ethically raised ground pork
1 can of tomato paste
1 tsp of crushed fennel
1 tsp of dried oregano
1 tsp of dried thyme
1/2 cup of dry white wine
1 small onion finely diced
5 sticks of celery finely diced
5 medium carrots finely diced
3 cans of diced tomatoes
1 large cut rind from parmesan block (about 1 inch x 4 inches)
1/2 cup of chicken stock
Small handful of fresh chopped parsley
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp of white vinegar
1/2 cup of heavy cream
Directions:
1. In a large frying pan, sear ground pork and oil until brown. Cook in batches if necessary so as not to sweat the pork, but be sure not over-brown either!
2. When pork is finished browning, add tomato paste, fennel, oregano, and thyme. Cook until pan starts to brown.
3. Deglaze with 1/2 cup of dry white wine. Let simmer on medium while you get to the next step!
4. In a separate LARGE sauce pan, simmer and sweat olive oil, onion, carrots and celery on medium until ingredients are soft.
5. Pour the meat mixture frying pan into the same saucepan as the veggies.
6. Add chicken stock and parmesan block into the large sauce pan – LET SIMMER ON LOW/ MEDIUM for about 30 minutes and at this point cook your pasta!
7. At the very end, add parsley, salt & pepper and white vinegar – the vinegar is very important as it helps brighten the flavours.
8. In the end, add the heavy cream if you want and remove what is left of the rind!
How do you feel about ethically raised meat and the treatment of animals!?! I’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions …
xo
Jilly
This sounds like a great recipe & one I will be trying very soon! If you haven’t yet, you should watch Cowspiracy on Netflix. I have been really interested in learning about ethically raised meat and dairy products over the last few years & recently watched this documentary & it’s probably the best one I’ve seen yet! Hope you enjoy it too! 🙂
Ooooooo yum!
Your recipe adds tomato paste 2x – I’m assuming it’s an error – which is supposed to be the diced tomatoes ? Does it matter?
Also – why is chuck in brackets? Did u do a combination of ground pork and ground chuck? (Chuck is beef right??)…I’m confused
The pictures look really good but this recipe makes no sense. I tried making this last night and it didn’t turn out looking anything like this. I normally like your recipes Jillian but this one seemed like it hadn’t been proofread and a lot of it was pretty vague/confusing!
I don’t see in the recipe when to add the diced tomatoes… Am I missing something? Thanks, Sarah
What do you mean remove what is left of the rind??
When do you add the diced tomatoes?