First the grapes, now Italians are trademarking all of their national dishes using DOC (Dominazione d’Origine Controllata). You can find Pizza Napoletana doc and Steak alla Fiorentina doc “official” and Bolognese Sauce is no exception. The traditional recipe for Bolognese sauce was deposited by Accademia Italiana della Cucina into the annals of Blogna’s Chamber of Commerce, in 1982. The instructions are very clear that once all of the ingredients are cut, browned, and evaporated their recipe needs an additional two hours to simmer – a minimum of three hours total.
With a pressure cooker, you can cut the simmering part of this recipe from two hours to less than 30 minutes! The result is a tender, chunky, incredibly flavorful (and official) Bolognese sauce in half the time! The trick to keeping this sauce thick in the pressure cooker is to add a cup of water (the only addition to the original recipe) in the middle of the cooking time.
Serve with egg tagliatelle, fettuccine, or some other rich, robust pasta that can hold up to the meatiness and flavor of this sauce.
| Pressure Cooker | Accessories | Pr. Cook Time | Pr. Level | Open |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 L or larger | none | 8 & 7 min. | High(2) | Normal |
(per serving)
- Serves: 6 to 8
- Serving size: ⅛th
- Calories: 209.3
- TOTAL Fat: 14.8g
- TOTAL Carbs: 6.7g
- Sugar Carbs: 3.2g
- Sodium: 674.5mg
- Fiber Carbs: 1.3g
- Protein: 9.5g
- Cholesterol: 43.4mg
- 4 oz. (100g) pancetta, or unsmoked bacon, cubed
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 1 medium carrot, chopped
- 1 medium celery stalk, chopped
- 11 oz. (300g) beef, ground
- ½ cup (125ml) red wine, Sangiovese or other dry red wine
- 5 tablespoons tomato paste concentrate (double or triple concentration)
- 1 cup (250ml) beef stock
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon pepper
- 1 to 1½ cups water, hot (see instructions)
- 1 tablespoon heavy cream
- In the cold pressure cooker with no oil or butter, with the top off, sprinkle the pancetta in a flat layer and turn on to the lowest heat possible to render the fat.
- After the pancetta begins to sizzle (in about 5 minutes) add the onion, carrot, and celery and raise the heat to medium-low and cook until well softened (about 10 minutes). If things begin to stick you can add a little pat of butter or swirl of olive oil.
- Raise the heat to medium and add the ground beef and brown well stirring occasionally (about 30 minutes or until all of the liquid from the meat is evaporated and the fat begins to sizzle).
- Add the wine and scrape the juicy bits stuck to the bottom and sides of the pan and evaporate it completely (about 7 minutes).
- In the meantime, mix the tomato paste with the beef stock and add salt, pepper. Pour the stock mixture into the cooker and stir well.
- Close and lock the lid of the pressure cooker.
- For electric pressure cookers: Cook for 10 minutes at high pressure.
For stove top pressure cookers: Turn the heat up to high and when the cooker indicates it has reached high pressure, lower to the heat to maintain it and begin counting 8 minutes pressure cooking time. - When time is up, open the cooker by releasing the pressure through the valve.
- Add hot water (1 cup for stovetop and 1½ cups for electric pressure cookers) , stir the contents well and scrape any juicy bits from the bottom to incorporate.
- Close and lock the lid of the pressure cooker.
- For electric pressure cookers: Cook for 10 minutes at high pressure.
For stove top pressure cookers: Turn the heat up to high and when the cooker indicates it has reached high pressure, lower to the heat to maintain it and begin counting 7 minutes pressure cooking When time is up, open the cooker by releasing the pressure through the valve. - Stir in the cream and serve!
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Thank you Laura, as always. :-)
Delicious, but somehow mine was a bit salty. I used Trader Joe’s tomato paste in the tube, and the pancetta they sell (forgot the brand). Next time I’ll cut back to 1/2 t. This is a forever fave in my dinner repertoire.
Should vent or non-vent setting be used? After adding the 1.5C of hot water, then pressurizing for another 10-minutes, the sauce was still so watery I had to boil it down. Based on the recipe, one is directed to prepare pasta separately?
Thank you.
We didn’t add hot water based on Rx’s comment, and still had to cook off extra liquid for around a half hour in the pressure cooker on high. We did so in 10 minute intravals to make sure we didn’t over cook.