How to Make Standard Meat Sauce

The explanation of meat sauce is one of the articles that many people read when it was published on Shokuiku Tsushin Online. Now, roughly speaking, the ingredients for meat sauce are ground meat, aromatic vegetables, moisture (tomatoes), and fats. These elements are the same for both professionals and amateurs, but the taste of the dishes prepared by professionals and amateurs is quite different. The purpose of this article is to examine where those differences come from.

The first step is a comparative analysis of recipes. Comparative analysis of recipes is done by converting quantities into percentages. This time, I calculated the other ingredients as a ratio based on the ground meat being 100%. If there is 1kg of ground beef, that is 100%, so if there are 2kg of whole tomatoes, that is 200%, and so on. Also, minor elements such as salt, pepper, and bay leaves have been omitted for comparison. First, the recipe from Italian master Chef Ochiai. (From La Bettola da Ochiai's Basics (Kodansha))

Ground beef 100%
Aromatic vegetables approx. 23%
Whole tomatoes 200%
Red wine 20%
Olive oil 20%

Next is the recipe from Chef Kataoka of Al Porto. (From Mamoru Kataoka's Definitive Italian Pasta Recipes 120)

Ground meat 100%
Aromatic vegetables 38%
Whole tomatoes 200%
Red wine 5%
Brodo (chicken bouillon) 15%
Olive oil 24%

Unexpectedly, the ratios are very similar. I also compared and examined recipes from Chef Hidaka of Acqua Pazza and Chef Yamada of Ristorante Hiro (at the time), and there were no major differences in the ratios.

Next, I calculated the recipes of culinary experts who are not chefs. This time, I will extract the numbers from Tania Kadokura's recipe published online. (From NHK Today's Cooking)

Ground meat 100% (plus 16% pancetta used for richness)
Aromatic vegetables 143%
Tomato paste 6% (+ moisture)
Fats 6.6%

This is quite different from the professionals. Next, I extracted a recipe from Cookpad. (Source: '☆Bolognese☆ (Meat Sauce) ')

Ground beef 100%
Red wine 50%
Aromatic vegetables 130%
Olive oil 7.5%
Whole canned tomatoes 200%

This is also quite different. Although I omitted it, a characteristic of Cookpad recipes is that various elements such as ketchup, medium-thick sauce, granulated consommé, soy sauce, and sugar are added. In the case of the recipe above, the amount of red wine is high, so it may be necessary to add sweetness to balance its acidity.

What is the difference between professionals and culinary experts (or amateurs)? One is the amount of aromatic vegetables. If it were a red wine stew or a stew, the vegetable flavor would not be too strong if strained, but in the case of meat sauce, it dilutes the flavor of the ground meat. This time, I will keep the aromatic vegetables to 40% or less to bring out the flavor of the meat.

The second is the amount of olive oil. Unlike French or Japanese cuisine, Italian cuisine basically does not add umami components from the outside in the form of dashi or stock. To put it very simply, French cuisine is 'searing meat and pouring sauce over it,' while Italian cuisine is 'searing meat and pouring oil over it.' In the flavor structure of Italian cuisine, the richness of oil is one of the foundations of the taste. I will use plenty of it here.

Now, let's actually make it. First, for the ingredients, I calculated the average of the five professional recipes and roughly rounded off the fractions. (Only the amount of bay leaves has been increased based on Chef Ochiai's recipe. The reason for this will be described later.) Because it is an average, it is a standard meat sauce.

Basic Meat Sauce (makes 4 or more servings, a generous amount)
Ground beef 500g
Salt 5g
Onion 115g (about half an onion)
Carrot 40g (about 6cm)
Celery 30g
Garlic 1 clove
Red wine 200cc
Bay leaves 4 leaves
Whole tomatoes 800g (2 cans)
Olive oil 50cc (ideally 80cc)
(Option: Flour (bread flour or cake flour) 2 tablespoons)
Salt, pepper n/a
Parmigiano cheese n/a

First, make the soffritto. Finely chop all the aromatic vegetables. Soffritto is the base for vegetable stock in Italian cuisine. It is used to add richness to stews and other dishes.

It is easy to use a food processor, but for this amount, it might be faster to cut by hand.

The ratio is about 2 parts onion to 1 part each of carrot and celery. Add 1 clove (or 2 cloves) of minced garlic to this. Some chefs use equal parts onion, carrot, and celery. Domestic celery is expensive, so I saved money this time.

Place all the ingredients in a heavy-bottomed pot and pour in the olive oil. Turn the heat to medium to start cooking. While professionals cook it over low heat while stirring for 1 to 1.5 hours, today I will teach you a way to make it efficiently in a short time since we don't have that much time to spare.

Also, the amount of olive oil here is modest. In Italian cuisine, you often see cases where olive oil is used to cover the ingredients (roughly 100cc, though it depends on the size of the pot) for every 200g of aromatic vegetables. This is a larger amount of oil compared to the mirepoix in French cuisine, which refers to the base of sautéed aromatic vegetables, similar to soffritto. A characteristic of soffritto is using a generous amount of oil to cook the vegetables, almost like a confit.
Why use so much oil? It is likely because while French mirepoix is meant to be used up each time, Italian soffritto is made with storage in mind. If you completely submerge the sautéed aromatic vegetables in oil and store them in the refrigerator, they can easily be kept for about a week (or sometimes longer). Conversely, if you don't need to consider storage, you can (somewhat) reduce the amount of oil. However, you cannot cook efficiently without a sufficient amount of oil.

The solution is to use a lid. If you use a lid, the bottom of the pot is heated by the oil, and the top is heated by steam. Since the temperature rises slowly when moisture is circulating, it is fine to keep the heat at medium. Cook for 5 minutes. However, if your pot is thin, be careful as the temperature will rise quickly. It is safer to open the lid and stir every 2 to 3 minutes.

A small tip: when stirring, try to let the moisture on the inside of the lid drip back into the pot. This suppresses the temperature rise inside and prevents the volatile compounds mixed in the steam from escaping as much as possible. Use a wooden spatula to mix by turning the contents over. At this time, if it seems like the aromatic vegetables are sticking to the bottom, the heat is too high, so please lower it.

Cover and cook for another five minutes. This is just a bonus, but if your pot has a handle, you can do this so you don't have to worry about where to put your wooden spatula.

After five minutes, open the lid and this time 'cook for five minutes without the lid.' The previous step was to cook the vegetables; this step is to create richness through the Maillard reaction. The Maillard reaction proceeds even at low temperatures, but it happens faster at around 160-170 degrees Celsius. (There is a risk of the sugars burning at temperatures higher than that.) If you don't use a lid, the moisture will evaporate, so the temperature of the pot surface will rise.

After waiting a while, the edges and bottom will start to brown. Scrape them off early with a wooden spatula. If you continue the process of waiting a while and then scraping the bottom for 5 minutes, it will take on a light color.

It has colored quite a bit, so turn off the heat. While it cools, the Maillard reaction will continue to progress, and the color will darken a little more. With this, the soffritto is done. You can make a lot of soffritto and freeze it. Dishes made by searing pork or chicken and simply simmering them with soffritto and white wine are also delicious.

Prepare the ground meat. The recipe calls for ground beef, but today I am using a mixture of ground beef and pork. Using only ground beef will result in a richer finish. Sprinkle the ground meat with salt equal to 1% of its weight.

Pour about a teaspoon of the 'oil floating on the surface of the soffritto from earlier' into a frying pan, arrange the meat from the pack in it, and turn the heat to medium. The process that follows will determine the difference in flavor. The key is to cook it without touching it.

It has browned quite a bit. Please brown it thoroughly, as if you were making a large hamburger patty.

Flip it over. The color in the photo shows that it still needs more browning, so continue to cook it. The reason this browning leads to richness is thanks to the Maillard reaction I explained earlier. Also, cooking it well removes the gamey smell of the ground meat. If you find this recipe lacking, it is likely because the browning in this step was insufficient.

Why shouldn't you stir the contents of the pan? It is because the Maillard reaction proceeds faster at temperatures above 170 degrees Celsius. Therefore, you need to raise the surface temperature of the pan to a certain extent, and the moisture coming out of the meat gets in the way of that. Consequently, breaking up the meat with a wooden spatula while frying is strictly forbidden. Meat is like a sponge containing moisture, and when you press it with a wooden spatula, the moisture flows out, preventing it from browning.

Here you have a choice. If you sprinkle about two tablespoons of flour over the meat and continue to fry it thoroughly, you will get a rich, heavy finish. Since this calculates to a significant amount of fat being added, please choose this if you are not concerned about calories.

Draining the oil like this results in a lighter finish. Transfer the browned meat to the pot with the soffritto. This part is entirely a matter of preference.

You might think that frying it that much will cause the meat juices to escape, but only the moisture evaporates, so the umami remains at the bottom of the frying pan. Dissolve this clump of umami with red wine.

Combine everything in the pot.

Add two cans of whole tomatoes. Please crush the whole tomatoes with your hands or a whisk. If you want to be thorough, it is better to strain them through a sieve so that the seeds do not get in. By the way, the photo is actually of diced tomatoes. (I had some left over...)

Add 400cc of water. This is to compensate for the evaporation that will occur as we simmer it for an hour from here on. A whole tomato can is exactly 400cc.

The liquid you add can be water, but adding one bouillon cube here will supplement the richness. Generally, commercially available bouillon cubes are based on 300cc of water per cube, so this is quite diluted. If you add too much, it will have an amateurish (?) chemical taste.

Add a few bay leaves. In a preliminary experiment, I tested it thinking, 'I wonder if it's okay without them,' but without the bay leaves, it clearly no longer tasted like a professional dish. Bay leaves have a refreshing aroma and a unique bitterness, which seem to eliminate the gamey smell of the meat and bring out the flavor. It surprisingly has a significant impact on the flavor.

Once it boils, skim off the scum and lower the heat to a simmer. Use the lowest heat possible.

Keep the pot lid slightly ajar. If you don't have a lid, increase the amount of water and simmer over low heat.
Whether or not to use a lid in stewing is surprisingly important; if you close the lid completely, the temperature inside will reach 100 degrees Celsius. If you leave it ajar, it will stay at about 95 degrees at most. Simmering slowly over low heat leads to a juicy meat sauce.

The simmering time is one hour. By the way, even though it's one hour, as long as you keep the heat low, it's fine to leave it alone for about 50 minutes. As long as there is moisture, the contents of the pot will not burn.

One hour has passed. The pot is red, so the contents look a bit reddish, but in reality, the color is a bit more brown. Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper. I think the salt you sprinkled on the ground meat at the beginning should be enough, so please taste it after adding the pepper.
It has a clean taste with the acidity of the tomatoes and the umami of the meat. Even though I added that much olive oil, there is no oil floating on the surface. If you like, add a teaspoon of sugar as a secret ingredient. This is to balance the acidity of the tomatoes. You don't have to add it, but adding it might make more people say it's delicious. However, there are cases where you don't need to make it that delicious, so it's a case-by-case basis.

You might think it's finished now, but actually, it's not; please let it cool down once. The moisture that came out of the meat during heating returns as it cools, making it tender and juicy. It's the same principle as stew.

When you taste the finished sauce, you might think it lacks a bit of richness. However, there is no need to worry, as that will be solved by adding Parmigiano cheese later.

By the way, regarding meat sauce pasta: some people often pour the sauce over fully boiled pasta, but you won't be able to taste the true deliciousness that way. By tossing pasta that has been boiled for about 20 seconds less than the recommended time with the piping hot sauce, the sauce will soak into the surface of the pasta, making it delicious.

Add the Parmigiano cheese and turn off the heat. Parmigiano cheese is rich in the umami component glutamic acid and is like natural MSG. As the Italian saying goes, "Bad cooks and housewives should use Parmigiano cheese," glutamic acid and inosinic acid have a synergistic effect on umami, so they go perfectly together.

The photo shows sautéed eggplant added to give it volume. Making meat sauce is a dish packed with the basics of stewing, such as browning the aromatic vegetables and meat thoroughly, and making sure the alcohol in the red wine has evaporated before adding other ingredients. By building up each step one by one, you should be able to achieve a delicious flavor without relying on store-bought bouillon cubes. Also, if you don't have celery, you can make it deliciously with just onions and carrots, or even just onions.