Aubergine Bolognese Rigatoni

Spaghetti Bolognese is not as simple as minced meat and tomato sauce cooked together. If you haven’t cooked long enough, the ingredients can’t be integrated well, and you’ll feel something is missing. During lockdown, I was finally willing to take the time to cook a real bolognese adopted from a Japanese professional chef.

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A Japanese Chef Bolognese Recipe

I searched the recipes of spaghetti bolognese online. Everyone cook it differently. Some just add minced meat with tomato sauce and herbs, and some even use ready-made tomato sauce and minced meat. This time, I referred to a pasta cookbook《PASTA 基本と応用、一生ものシェフレシピ１００》 written by a Japanese chef Manaka Masao, in which there are teachings on bolognese, and rigatoni cooked with the that bolognese and aubergine. Although It takes time, it’s really delicious! So I want to share it here.

Chilled for 3 Days, Frozen for 7 Days

A meat sauce that has to be cooked for so long is certainly not just a one-time serving. This bolognese sauce has about 1.1 kg, and about 150 g each time it is used for pasta, so it is very convenient to cook this bolognese sauce once and eat it for 7-8 times. It can be stored for 3 days if stored in the refrigerator, or about a week in the refrigerator.

Basically, if you want to be lazy, reheat the meat sauce, cook the pasta, and mix it together. If you want to taste better, don’t be lazy, heat up a pan, sauté garlic and chilli to increase the aroma, it will be even more delicious.

If you want to cook meat-free pasta sauce, you may like you can’t go wrong tomato sauce.

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Ingredients

Makes c.a. 1.1 kg

How to Make a Real Bolognese

1. Heat olive oil in a deep pan, fry garlic with low heat until fragrant, add onion, carrot and celery, slowly stir-fry for 7-10 mins.
2. Add minced meat and loosen up, add salt (I used 1/2 tsp), stir-fry until meat is done, then pour in red wine, bring to simmer for 2 mins.
3. Add canned tomato and bay leaf, cook with low heat for 30 mins, add season with salt again(I added 1/2 tsp), keep cooking for 1 hour more. While it’s cooking, you can taste again, add little water if it became too dry.

Cooking Note

According to the cook book, this meat sauce takes 1.5 hour to cook. But I couldn’t wait so long, so I’ve attempted to shorten the cooking time to 30 mins. However, the tomato sauce and minced meat were not integrate well enough, and the texture was a bit watery, meat taste was weak also. So I let it kept cooking. Actually, I hadn’t cooked for 1.5 hours, I guess it was around 80 mins, gave it a taste and it was good, then I started plating.

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Aubergine Bolognese Rigatoni Recipe

If you cooked the meat sauce right, and boiled the pasta to al-dente, your prefect pasta is almost there! That’s why I love pasta – Simple ingredients and cooking, deliver great results.

To day, Germany has been in lock down for 3 and a half months. We didn’t like take-out so much, so I have been cooking every meal everyday. And pasta is one of the best homemade dishes. This meat sauce recipe is truly good, I guess not long after I’ll cook it again!

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Ingredients

Serves 2

• 140 g rigatoni
• 270 g real meat sauce
• 180 g aubergine
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/2 dried chilli, deseeded
• Parmesen cheese
• olive oil
• salt
• c.a. 100 g pasta cooking water

How to Make

1. Cut aubergine into 4mm thickness, shallow-fry or deep-fry till cooked through, season with pinch of salt.
2. Bring a pot of water to boil, add 1% salt and cook the pasta. Meanwhile, at the other pan, fry garlic and chilli until fragrant, stir in meat sauce and stir well.
3. Add about 50 g pasta cooking water to the meat sauce, return back the cooked aubergine.
4. Again add about 2 tbsp pasta cooking water to the meat sauce, stir well. Add cooked pasta, some more olive oil, Parmesen cheese and salt. Everything stir well, serve hot and enjoy!