1 week Ago By Chris Samuel
Two surprising ingredients could be a great way to breathe new life into your spaghetti bolognese - but it may upset the purists. Bolognese is thought to have originated in the kitchens of Bologna, and was served in the northern Italian city as a topping for tagliatelle, the flat, thick pasta likened to ribbons, as per Prezzo . The dish is now a beloved staple for millions of households and is replicated all over the world.
Traditionalists are often against any deviation from how it was made back in the day, but others have decided to tweak elements of it to enhance certain flavours. Among them is Alison Roman , a beloved chef, writer, and internet personality who shared her own twist on the classic dish. In a recipe on her website , she explains that, while her approach contains the classic elements of a spag bol, like tomato, fatty meat, milk, wine, and milk, there are "no carrots or celery here".
Instead, she opts for a fennel bulb, which she says is "sweet like carrots, vegetal like celery" and to "double down on the blasphemy", she also adds fennel seed to the mixture. If you're following the traditional method, the finely chopped fennel bulb is added in at the same time as the garlic and onion once the meat is "about 80% browned to your liking", before seasoning with salt and pepper. Two tablespoons of fennel seed are then added along with some red pepper flakes after the meat is fully browned to your liking, and the garlic and fennel have "softened nicely".
Both ingredients are added before adding and cooking down the wine and the simmering process, to release the rich flavour of the ingredients. You can find the full recipe here . But fennel isn't the only addition to the iconic dish that works surprisingly well.
In a recent Master Chef cook-off judged by celebrity chefs The Hairy Bikers, one contestant decided to go off-road and add something you'd expect in a dessert, and the ingredient proved to be the star of the show ..
