Why is this the first time I’m hearing about white bolognese? As someone with the aversion for tomatoes, that sounds really appealing. What creates the saucy element here?
That’s the thing, you use white tomatoes /s
D’oh!
It’s probably closer to a traditional bolognese, which is a milk sauce.
Pardon the pun, but that’s baloney. According to Italian Academy of Cuisine, classic bolognese is:
beef cut from the plate section (cartella di manzo), fresh unsmoked pancetta (pancetta di maiale distesa), onions, carrot, celery, passata (or tomato purée), meat broth, dry white wine, milk, salt and pepper
It is true that the original recipe for bolognese does not include tomato, I still wouldn’t call a sauce that happens to include milk “milk sauce”. It’s primarily a meat and vegetable sauce in both cases.
Seems a little pedantic, considering the base of the sauce is primarily milk with some white wine. Perhaps I should have said milk based sauce instead.
the base of the sauce is primarily milk
It isn’t, in any recognized version of the recipe. The original recorded recipe contains no milk at all. Some versions contain milk along with broth and wine, the broth being the primary liquid in the sauce.
So I loosely followed a couple recipes and combined them. One had the meat and veggies simmer in vegetable stock until it was just about gone and than add a little corn starch slurry to thicken it up and than I added maybe a 1/4 cup of heavy cream.
It would actually be called “white ragù” and it’s not usually associated with the city of Bologna like the classic “ragù alla Bolognese”. The best white ragù I’ve had was actually in Tuscany. They have fucking great meat down there (also great wine)
As for the “sauce” element, it’s usually created by the fat released from the pork meat (and the bacon/pancetta). In OP’s dish, the issue is that he didn’t incorporate the sauce with the pasta, therefore it looks dry and unappetizing. White pasta, when just left there on its own, is pretty bad. It needs to cling on to a sauce (which can be just some olive oil, but it needs something).
Next time, I’d advise putting it in a pan with the sauce and toss it for a minute or so, then serve.
