Slice or dice some good quality (not smoked) pancetta and gently fry it to release some of that delicious fat, about five minutes or so should do. If you don't have pancetta some unsmoked steaky bacon will do. I like to use an enamelled Dutch oven for this (I use a Le Creuset, other brands are available).
Finely dice a large onion, a carrot, a rib of celery, and a few fat cloves of garlic and add to the pancetta. Add a little olive oil if you feel it needs it. Very gently fry for about ten minutes.
Side note: onion, carrot, and celery make a soffritto, the cornerstone of Italian sauces and soups. This is very similar to a French mirepoix, and only a little different to a Cajun or Creole 'holy trinity' which switches out the carrot for a green bell pepper.
Meanwhile, fry 500g or so of beef mince to get some colour on it. I tend to take the block of mince and sear it hard, on both sides, in a cast iron skillet, then break it up before adding it to the soft veggies.
Add a big ol’ glass of wine. White or red. Let’s face it, no nonna ever thought “I only have white wine in the cupboard, let’s get KFC instead”.
Simmer on a medium-high heat, stirring often, until most of the wine has evaporated. About 10 minutes. You could probably just simmer on a low heat for longer but I’m a very impatient man.
Add 500 ml passata, 250 ml whole milk, 250 ml beef stock. Yup. Milk. Trust me. Whole milk, obv. And go easy with the passata. This is a meat sauce with tomato, not a tomato sauce with meat.
Bring it back to a simmer and turn the heat right down to the lowest you can. Wait three to four hours while it simmers, checking and stirring every twenty or so minutes. If it starts to dry out, add a little more stock.
Test for, and adjust, seasoning, with salt and pepper, obv.
Then cook some pasta - I much prefer tagliatelle to spaghetti for a ‘bol’. Drain the pasta and add to the pan with the sauce. Mix it up good and proper, then serve with slightly more freshly grated Parmesan than seems sensible.
Nice.
That will make enough sauce for about 8 people. I usually ladle out half of it into some Tupperware and freeze it. If I’m making a double batch to freeze for several meals, I’ll add 500g of minced pork to the beef, and double all the other ingredients.
Now then. Let’s talk real. Italian food is gate-kept (gate-keepered?) more than pretty much any other cuisine in the world. But ‘spag bol’ is now an international dish and there are more variations of it cooked around the world than there are people in Italy, and that’s absolutely okay. If you want to add mushrooms, dried herbs, chorizo, or even – and I’ve seen it recommended – peanut butter, that’s up to you and if the people you’re serving it to like it then hurrah! One piece of advice though (and this is advice for life, not just for spag bol) avoid Worcestershire Sauce if you can. Henderson’s Relish is infinitely superior.
But if you do want to try the official recipe for Ragù alla Bolognese, you can find it here.