Penne Pasta in Tomato and Ground Meat Sauce

👨‍🍳 Method

For the Meat sauce

1. 1
   Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat.

   ⚙ Pan-fryingStoveLarge pot
2. 2
   Add the onion and fry 5–8 minutes, stirring now and then, until the onion is soft and translucent and starts to turn golden at the edges. If it browns too fast, lower the heat.

   ⚙ Adding to the hot fat and fryingStove

   💡Add by cooking time: what needs long (onion, carrot, meat) goes in first, and what burns fast (garlic, dry spices) goes in last, only until fragrant.
3. 3
   Add the garlic and fry about 30 seconds to 1 minute, just until fragrant. Don't let the garlic brown.

   ⚙ Adding to the hot fat and fryingStove

   💡Garlic burns quickly and turns bitter. Add it only after the onion has softened, over medium heat, and add the next ingredient as soon as it smells fragrant.
4. 4
   Raise the heat to medium-high and add the meat. Press it flat over the bottom and leave it for 2–3 minutes without stirring, until a brown crust forms.

   Stove

   💡Brown ground beef in the pot without pressing it: leave it as one 'cake' for a few minutes until a brown crust forms, then break it into chunks. Deep browning = deep flavor.
5. 5
   Break it up with a wooden spoon and fry for 5–7 more minutes, stirring, until no pink is left and the meat browns.

   StoveWooden spoon
6. 6
   Add the tomato paste to the meat and stir 1 minute, until it darkens a little.

   💡Fry the tomato paste with the meat for a minute before the liquids: it caramelizes lightly, loses its sourness and deepens the sauce.
7. 7
   Pour in the red wine, scrape up what stuck to the bottom, and cook for 3–5 minutes, until about half the wine has evaporated.

   Stove

   💡Adding the red wine at the start and cooking it long lets the alcohol evaporate and the flavor deepen.
8. 8
   Add the tomatoes, oregano and basil, season with salt and black pepper and bring to a boil.

   Stove

   💡Add a pinch of sugar or half a grated carrot to a tomato sauce. The natural sugar balances the acidity. Do not add baking soda: it changes the texture and the taste.
9. 9
   Serve hot 0.

   ⚙ SimmeringStoveLid

   💡The slower the sauce cooks, the thicker it gets and the better the flavors blend. 20–30 minutes make a quick meat sauce; an hour and a half to two hours over low heat make a rich Bolognese.

   💡A gentle simmer, not a boil: a hard boil dries the food out and clouds it, a slow simmer cooks it evenly.

For the Cooked pasta

1. 10
   Cook the pasta in plenty of boiling salted water (4¼ cups of water and a heaping teaspoon of salt for every 4 oz of pasta), following the package directions (taste about 2 minutes early), until al dente.

   ⚙ Cooking in salted waterStovePot

   💡The water should taste like a seasoned soup, not like sea water: a heaping teaspoon of salt per liter. Add the salt once the water is boiling.
2. 11
   Reserve cup of the cooking water before draining.

   ⚙ Saving the cooking waterLadleorMeasuring cup

   💡The cooking water is starchy: a spoonful or two binds the sauce to the pasta or the gnocchi and makes it glossy.
3. 12
   Drain.

   Colander

To assemble

1. 13
   Add the drained pasta to the sauce, with a little of the cooking water if it is thick, and toss well.

   💡Toss the pasta in the sauce over the heat for one minute: it soaks up the sauce instead of just being coated in it.
2. 14
   Serve immediately with the Parmesan.