Recipe Spaghetti Bolognaise

[MypinchofItaly]

Oh c'mon. Why speechless?
Give me a well thought out rationale and I'll chop finely by hand

When you cut vegetables with a knife for soffritto (onion, carrot, celery), you can control the size of the pieces. This allows the soffritto to retain a slightly textured structure. If you grate them instead, you get a pulp that tends to break down completely.
Moreover cut pieces release their liquids more slowly and cook more evenly. Instead the grated vegetables, release a lot of water immediately, which can cause them to “boil” rather than sauté.

 

[Barriehie]

Re Marco Pierro White - thoughts on grating the veg? 'Offical' recipe says chop very finely, dont blitz?

TBH I blitz.

I'm too lazy to wash the jillion cup blitzer I have so I chop. Plus, karadekoolaid made good points on chopping. I come from the land of the French mirepoix.

 

[Z-Cook]

I cut mine into what's called brunoise, because the soffrito for a bolognese is exactly the same as a French mirepoix. All the vegetables diced into (approximately) the same size.
Cooking logic is that they then all cook (on a low to medium heat) at the same speed. When blitzed, the finer bits will cook faster (and may even burn) while the thicker bits will take longer to cook.

When you cut vegetables with a knife for soffritto (onion, carrot, celery), you can control the size of the pieces. This allows the soffritto to retain a slightly textured structure. If you grate them instead, you get a pulp that tends to break down completely.
Moreover cut pieces release their liquids more slowly and cook more evenly. Instead the grated vegetables, release a lot of water immediately, which can cause them to “boil” rather than sauté.

Fair enough. Same reason I always finely hand chop beef for chile con carne and certain NewMex chile stews and never use ground beef.

That said, I dont blitz the ragu veg to a pulp at all and the frying is gentle.

Actually, the boiling comment is very pertinent MypinchofItaly. Next time I'll hand chop and see what the difference is to my usual mini chopper routine. Thx all.

 

[MypinchofItaly]

Fair enough. Same reason I always finely hand chop beef for chile con carne and certain NewMex chile stews and never use ground beef.

That said, I dont blitz the ragu veg to a pulp at all and the frying is gentle.

Actually, the boiling comment is very pertinent MypinchofItaly. Next time I'll hand chop and see what the difference is to my usual mini chopper routine. Thx all.

Let us know how it goes!