This cannot be called a "bolognese" because the ragù alla bolognese recipe is quite different. Most doses are eyeballed, so do not expect too much precision here.

I used about 250 grams of minced "vitellone" (older than a calf but not yet a beef) and a similarly sized "salamella", a fresh sausage made in Mantova. I took 1/3 of both and placed them aside in a bowl and worked them toghether. Then I added 1 heapedtablespoon of grated Parmigiano Reggiano, the same amount of very thin breadcrumbs (and with breadcrums I mean old bread that I dried and grated myself), one egg yolk, a couple tablespons of milk, a pinch of salt and worked the stuff toghether until uniform and yelding (add more milk if needed). I made this mixture in tiny meatballs, less than one inch in diameter, and dusted them with flour. I browned the meatballs in a pan with a little EVO oil and placed them aside.


Aside, I started mincing very finely, and I mean VERY finely, a tiny (tiny tiny!) garlic clove, half a small onion, half a carrot and a similarly sized piece of celery. I placed the vegetables ina saucepan with a couple tablespoons of EVO oil and simmered it until softened, then added the leftover meat and sausage, browned it breaking it apart with the wooden spoon, added half a cup of dry white wine and let the alchool simmer away until the liquid was reduced to about 1/4 (smell the fumes to check how much alchool is left in the sauce).


At this point I added 1 1/2 cups of tomato sauce with the same amount of water, a pinch of salt and a pinch of black pepper and 2-3 tablespoons of milk, and I left the sauce to boil on the lowest setting. After about 1 hour I added the meatballs so that they finished cooking in the sauce. Overall, the ragù boiled for about 2 hours, maybe a little more.


The sauce, "meatballess" was used to garnish some pasta, while the tiny meatballs (thumb added for scale) were served as a secondo with some Balsamico Tradizionale meatballs (actually, I used Condimento San Giacomo).

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I used about 250 grams of minced "vitellone" (older than a calf but not yet a beef)

Would the vitellone taste much different than beef? In other words, could beef be substituted?

-Krista

Actually, I use vitellone because I don't like veal, which is what most Italians use. Beef is a bit hard to come by here. Go with beef.

Krista, how old is beef normally? Vitellone is commercially called so up to 2.5 years old...

Giulia, I had no idea, so I looked at the US Department of Agriculture website, which had this to say:

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"Beef" is meat from full-grown cattle about 2 years old. A live steer weighs about 1,000 pounds and yields about 450 pounds of edible meat.

"Baby beef" and "calf" are 2 interchangeable terms used to describe young cattle weighing about 700 pounds that have been raised mainly on milk and grass. The meat cuts from baby beef are smaller; the meat is light red and contains less fat than beef. The fat may have a yellow tint due to the vitamin A in grass.

"Veal" is meat from a calf which weighs about 150 pounds. Those that are mainly milk-fed usually are less than 3 months old. The difference between "veal" and "calf" is based on the color of their meat, which is determined almost entirely by diet. Veal is pale pink and contains more cholesterol than beef.

Thank you Krista for looking that up for me! So, based on the US Department of Agriculture and my experience (I breed organic beef) I think that you can definitely use beef for Alice's recipe