We know what your thinking. You looked at the name and thought "pasta again?" Darn right you did. And you liked it when you glanced down the post and found Beef and Bacon on the list. Beef and bacon in a penne bolognese dish. That makes this dish the best pasta dish ever. Which is why this dish is a regular in the Petruno household, Eric requests this hearty pasta on almost a weekly basis and Charisse of course never complains about it. Charisse learned to make homemade sauce from her grandma Butera, and Eric learned from his mother. We perfected our sauce together while we still lived in San Francisco, and Charisse has since dug deep into her Italian heritage (and close proximity to her Italian grandma growing up 10 houses down the street living off of homemade meatballs, cookies and pizza as a kid) to make this the best sauce ever. Charisse's Grandma grew up in Campbell Ca and was raised by her Sicilian born parents. This is the source of her Italian cooking roots which she thankfully passed along to Monica and Charisse.
Now about that penne bolognese. The best part about a pasta like this, is you can really experiment with it. Try different kinds of meat, different spices and different shapes of pasta. In this dish we went with a combination of bacon and good quality ground chuck, but have also used ground lamb or ground turkey which gives a twist to the dish. One of these days we are going to try a duck bolognese. Eric seems to always request a Duck dish whenever the San Jose Sharks play Anaheim.
Generally traditional bolognese sauces usually call for chopped celery as well, but we all know that Charisse is not a celery fan so we said forget it. Serve this sauce on a cool night over a thick pasta that will stand up to the bolognese, lots of romano cheese and a side salad or some crusty bread, and don't forget the big italian red wine (Eric's favorite is a
Chianti Reserva)!
Pictures and Recipe after the break
