Baked Rigatoni with Bolognese Sauce and Béchamel Sauce

from The Classic Italian Cook Book, Marcella Hazan

submitted by Michael Dewees

overall preparation time: about four hours and 30 minutes

serves 6

For the Bolognese sauce:

Preparation time – about four hours, including cooking

yield: 2 heaping cups for about 6 servings

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

3 tablespoons butter, plus 1 tablespoon for tossing

½ cup chopped onion 

⅔ cup chopped celery

⅔ cup chopped carrot

¾ pound ground beef chuck (or ¼ pound pork plus ½ pound beef)

Salt

Black pepper, ground fresh from the mill

1 cup whole milk

Whole nutmeg

1 cup dry white wine

1¼ to 1½ cups canned imported Italian plum tomatoes, cut up, with their juice

Freshly grated Parmigiana-Reggiano cheese at the table

Put the oil, butter and chopped onion in the pot and turn the heat on to medium. Cook a stir the onion until it has become translucent. then add the chopped celery and carrot. Cook for about 2 minutes, stirring vegetables to coat them well.

Add ground beef, a large pinch of salt and a few grindings of pepper. Crumble the meat with a fork, stir well and cook until the beef has lost its raw, red color. Add milk and let it simmer gently, stirring frequently, until it has bubbled away completely. Add a tiny grating, about ½ teaspoon, of nutmeg and stir.

Add the wine, let it simmer until it has evaporated, then add the tomatoes and stir thoroughly to coat all ingredients well. When the tomatoes begin to bubble, turn the heat down so that the sauce cooks at the laziest of simmers, with just an intermittent bubble breaking through to the surface.

Cook, uncovered, for 3 hours or more, stirring from time to time. While the sauce is cooking, you are likely to find that it begins to dry out and the fat separates from the meat. To keep it from sticking, add ½ cup of water whenever necessary. At the end, however, no water at all must be left and the fat must separate from the sauce. Taste and correct for salt.

For the Béchamel sauce:

 Makes: 1⅔ cups medium thick sauce2 cups milk3 tablespoons all-purpose flour4 tablespoons butter¼ teaspoon salt

In a small pan, heat the milk until it comes to the very edge of a boil.

While you are heating the milk, melt the butter over low heat in a heavy enameled iron saucepan of 4 to 6 cups’ capacity.

When the butter is melted, add all the flour, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. Let the flour and butter bubble for 2 minutes, without ceasing to stir. Do not let the flour become colored.

Turn off the heat and add the hot milk 2 tablespoons at a time, stirring it constantly into the flour-and-butter mixture. As soon as the first 2 tablespoons have been incorporated into the mixture, add another 2 tablespoons, always stirring with your trusty spoon. When you have added ½ cup of milk to the mixture, you can start adding ¼ cup at a time, until you have added it all. (Never add more than ¼ cup at one time.)

When all the milk has been incorporated, turn on the heat to low, add the salt, and stir-cook until the sauce is as dense as thick   cream. If you need it thicker, cook and stir a little while longer. If you need it thinner, cook a little less

When the sauce cools, it sets, and you will not be able to spread it. Therefore, in as much as it takes so little time to prepare, it is best to make it just before you are ready to use it. If you must make it in advance, reheat it slowly, stirring constantly until it is the right consistency again. Béchamel sauce can also be refrigerated.

For the pasta:
1 pound rigatoni or similar-cut pasta, such as mezzani, or penne

2 cups Meat Sauce, Bolognese Style, prepared above
A medium-thick Béchamel Sauce, prepared above

6 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese

2 tablespoons butter

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Drop the pasta into 4 quarts of boiling salted water and cook until just al dente, firm to the bite. (It should be a shade firmer than you would ordinarily cook it because it will soften more as it bakes in the oven.) Drain and transfer to a large mixing bowl.

Add the meat sauce, the béchamel sauce, and 4 tablespoons of the grated cheese to the pasta. Mix thoroughly. Transfer to a butter- smeared bake-and-serve dish. Level the top with a spatula, sprinkle it with the remaining 2 tablespoons grated cheese, and dot with butter. Place in the uppermost level of the oven and bake for 10 minutes. Allow to settle a few minutes before serving.

Comments: Use the best Parmesan, not the sawdust (already grated) found everywhere. Be sure that when the meat and Bechamel sauce are added, that the mixture is moist. If it is too dry, add a little milk, mix again to test to see if it is creamy. Then add the remaining Parmesan and butter.

Of interest: Long before the French christened it “béchamel,” a sauce of flour and milk cooked in butter, called balsamella, was a part of the cooking of Romagna. It is essential to many of its pastas and vegetables, and such an unquestionably native dish as lasagna could not exist without it.

Balsamella is possibly the simplest and most quickly made of sauces. The only problem it poses is the formation of lumps. If you add the milk as directed, a little bit at a time, off the heat, beating the sauce constantly with a wooden spoon, you should have absolutely no difficulty in producing a perfectly smooth balsamella every time.