A Quick (Sort-Of) Bolognese Recipe

Four days after my youngest returned to college from winter break, they called, debating whether to come home. Wildfires had broken out across Los Angeles, where we both live, causing unimaginable damage to homes and whole neighborhoods. We knew families who lost everything in an instant and didn’t know what might come as evacuation zones expanded and dry wind took down trees.

Of course, I desperately wanted to pick up my kid, but also to let them make that choice. A few minutes after we reviewed our emergency meet-up plan, they called back asking for a ride. The campus was emptying fast.

On our way home, we took the 405 freeway, and, at its crest, saw the furious red arc of flames from the Palisades fire. By the time we pulled into our driveway, ash flurried lightly in the darkness. My instinct was to cook my kid something to allay anxiety as the world around us burned. As if reading my mind, they asked for pasta.

“With a creamy sauce, but also tomato sauce? Maybe spicy? Something like the Bolognese you used to make.”

And by that, they didn’t mean the all-day Marcella Hazan beauty reserved for lazy Sundays, but the meat sauce I’d often throw together in half an hour on school nights so we could eat between sports practices. It was what we needed that night — quick, practical, grounding — and with the spicy heat they now crave in their comfort foods.

A specialty of northern Italy, Bolognese, named for Bologna, the capital of Emilia-Romagna, takes hours and hours of slow simmering like any true meaty ragù. What you taste in the mellow tomato sauce of beef, vegetables and milk is time, which shouldn’t be confused with love when it comes to cooking. Yes, stirring a pot for a whole afternoon is devotion. So, too, is making any meal for others with whatever time you have.

This pasta sauce captures the soul-soothing essence of Bolognese even though it cooks fast and hard over high heat. The first key to preparing this dish quickly is setting a Dutch oven over high until it’s ripping hot.

When the ground beef hits the dry surface, it’ll immediately start to brown, developing a caramelized taste that mimics the depth of slow-cooked meat. It’ll also release its fat, which is used to sizzle diced onion and carrot. To save time, I chop while the meat is cooking. I find the process calming, but, if it has the opposite effect on you, prep the vegetables before the beef goes in.

Adding a few spoonfuls of red curry paste to the sputtering blend doesn’t make it taste like curry, but gives it instant nuance and depth. Although the paste’s chiles, spices and aromatics take the sauce far from its origins, they bring you closer to dinner quickly. As the paste coats the beef and vegetables, it also darkens, a good indicator that the seasonings are intensifying in taste. (If you’re averse to spicy foods, tomato paste works too, but adds sweetness rather than heat and fragrance.)

The heat under the pot finally comes down once tomato sauce is stirred in and bubbling. That’s the right time to drop the pasta into boiling water because those are all the minutes the sauce needs to simmer. To capture the milky softness of Bolognese, heavy cream is mixed with the sauced pasta, and its rich dairy rounds the sharp heat to an enveloping warmth.

My kid’s response to their plate? “Yessssssss.”

It was what they — we — needed: a dinner that felt real when everything outside seemed surreal, easy to eat when the world is hard. We felt a lot of things that night, facing yet another unknown together. And we remain heartbroken for the losses though we were lucky, our neighborhood spared, our go bags now unpacked.

My youngest is back at college, right where they should be. And they’ve already requested this pasta for their next meal at home.