Cooking with Charity: Bolognese alla Isola

On that cold winter night that you know is coming, you could do worse than snuggle up next to a bowl full of wide pasta noodles coated in a silky, rib-sticking meat sauce.

That’s the experience that Isola, the traditional Italian restaurant in the Heights, creates all year-round. Owner Brad Kitkowski has lured many skilled chefs to Isola (Italian for island) since he opened eight years ago, and every one of them has put their imprint on the Bolognese sauce, served on 2-inch wide pappardelle noodles.

It appeared on Isola’s very first menu and has remained one of the most popular dishes they make.

Bolognese is a meat sauce, and the Bolognese classic version, ragu alla bolognese, is always made with vegetables, tomatoes, heavy cream and beef.

The Oxford Companion to Italian Food describes it as a dense, meaty sauce that is cooked for many hours over a low heat and served with a rich egg pasta of a hearty shape, such as tagliatelle or pappardelle. Octavio Moreno, who has been chef at Isola for three years, agreed to share his own take on Isola’s signature dish.

Allow four hours. The sauce is actually better on the second day. If you are in a big hurry, better to go to Isola and order it.

Octavio Moreno’s Bolognese Sauce with Pappardelle

At Isola, for each order Chef Moreno uses two pans; one for the tomato sauce that cooks for hours low and slow, and one for the meat and aromatics which cook at higher heat before joining the sauce in a communal simmer before being combined with the pasta just before serving.

“This morning, I woke up at 8 a.m. to start the pasta,” he said. “We use egg, salt, olive oil, Blue 00 flour in a big mixer. We make a lip on the dough, and we roll it over and over in the pasta machine, 2-inches wide for pappardelle.”

In the kitchen at Isola, the sauce is also started early in the day. Chef Moreno said, “For the sauce, use San Marzano style tomatoes and cook it for a long time, a good red sauce, made with oregano, garlic, basil, bay leaf and red wine.”

Each order starts in a skillet. “We cook carrots, onions, celery — a small dice, like a sofrito, and then brown the meat. The meat should have some fat, not sirloin, something savory. Then garlic, red wine to deglaze the skillet. Add the pomodoro, and then the pasta.”

The Pomodoro Sauce

• 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
   (EVOO)

• 2 large garlic cloves, minced

• 1 28-ounce can of whole, peeled,
   San Marzano-style tomatoes

• 5 fresh basil leaves, chopped

• 1 bay leaf

• 2 stalks of fresh thyme

• 1 teaspoon dried oregano or
   2 teaspoons fresh

• 1 teaspoon salt

• ½ teaspoon ground pepper

The Bolognese Sauce

• 1 pound ground round, flank steak 
   or chuck, about 80/20 lean/fat.

• 1 tablespoon EVOO

• ½ large yellow onion, minced

• 1 large carrot, minced

• 1 large celery rib, minced

• 2 garlic cloves, minced

• Salt and pepper

• ¼ cup red wine

• 1 pound fresh or dried pappardelle

• Grated parmesan.

1. Heat the olive oil in a kettle and cook the garlic until soft and fragrant.  Do not brown the garlic, it gives a bitter flavor. Combine the rest of the sauce ingredients in the kettle and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down to simmer and cook low and slow for two-three hours until the sauce is thick. Remove the bay leaf and thyme stalks and keep the sauce warm.

2. Cook 1 pound of fresh or dried pappardelle just shy of al dente. The pasta will continue to cook in the sauce, so it’s important to undercook it by a couple of minutes. Save a cup of the pasta water and keep it warm.

3. Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large skillet. Add ground round and cook over medium heat until the meat is browned all over.

4. Push the meat to the side and add the onion, carrot, celery and garlic to the hot skillet, adding more oil as necessary. Saute until soft and add wine.

5. When the wine has cooked off, ladle in the slow-cooked pomodoro sauce, thinning the sauce with the pasta water as necessary.

6. Add the al dente pasta and gently cook and combine the sauce and noodles until all surfaces of the pappardelle are coated with sauce. Thin with pasta water as necessary.

7. Add grated parmesan and serve at once.