Bring the sauce liquid to an active simmer, cover the pan, and adjust the heat to maintain slow, steady cooking, with small bubbles perking all over the surface of the sauce. From this point, the Bolognese should cook for 3 hours. Check the pot every 20 minutes, and add hot milk as needed to cover the meat.
Served with fresh tagliatelle, particularly spinach tagliatelle, it is the precursor to meat sauce as we know it, and still the main Sunday staple at a Bolognese Sunday meal. The ricetta antica, an old recipe, has milk added while the sauce simmers, to give it additional richness and velvety texture.
Once you have had a truly good Bolognese sauce, it will become one of your go-to recipes. Bolognese is a very versatile sauce: it can dress all shapes and sizes pasta, whether it’s over fresh tagliatelle, dried spaghetti, or baked rigatoni.
Today it is mostly the tradizionale, without milk, that is cooked in Bologna. Put all 4 pounds of ground meat in a large mixing bowl. With your fingers, crumble and loosen it all up; then toss and crumble the beef and pork together. Pour over it the white wine, and work all the meat through your fingers again so it’s evenly moistened.