You’ll notice I don’t entitle this blog post ‘Italian recipe: The ultimate authentic spaghetti Bolognese’. Strange, you may think – surely the world-famous and popular dish is a meat-and-tomato sauce served with spaghetti? Indeed, that is how many Italian restaurants the world over serve the dish, and yet for Bolognese purists, tagliatelle is the correct pasta type to marry with the sauce.

And if many, many people are getting the pasta element of the dish wrong, just imagine how variations in the Bolognese sauce recipe frustrate authentic Italian chefs! ‘Bolognese is the most abused Italian dish,’ lamented one ‘Bolognese virtuoso’ from Modena to the Telegraph. In 2010, so dispirited were Bolognese purists with the state of affairs that they arranged a mass cook-a-thon: 450 chefs in Italian restaurants in 50 countries cooked Bolognese sauce from a recipe laid down by Mario Caramella (president of Gruppo Virtuale Cuochi Italiani – Virtual Group of Italian Chefs) as being the definitive Bolognese sauce.

The following is a simple version of the recipe as published in the Telegraph.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp olive oil

6 rashers of streaky ‘pancetta’ bacon, chopped

2 large onions, chopped

3 garlic cloves, crushed

2 carrots, chopped

Stick of celery

1kg/2¼lb lean minced beef

2 large glasses of red wine

2x400g cans chopped tomatoes

2 fresh or dried bay leaves

salt and freshly ground black pepper

800g-1kg/1¾-2¼lb dried tagliatelle

freshly grated parmesan cheese, to serve

1. Heat the oil in a large, heavy-based saucepan and fry the bacon until golden over a medium heat. Add the onions and garlic, frying until softened. Increase the heat and add the minced beef. Fry it until it has browned. Pour in the wine and boil until it has reduced in volume by about a third. Reduce the temperature and stir in the tomatoes and celery.

2. Cover with a lid and simmer over a gentle heat for 1-1½ hours until it’s rich and thickened, stirring occasionally.

3. Cook the tagliatelle in plenty of boiling salted water. Drain and divide between plates. Sprinkle a little parmesan over the pasta before adding a good ladleful of the sauce. Finish with a further scattering of cheese and a twist of black pepper.

Follow these tips from Mario Caramella to ensure the very best flavour:

• The better the quality of the ingredients, the better the end result.
• Serve within a few hours of making.
• Serve your pasta al dente.

Let the dish speak for itself – don’t garnish with herbs or accompany with garlic bread.