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Spaghetti bolognese base ingredients put to the taste test

Callan Boys
Callan Boys

Essential ingredients: These spaghetti, tinned tomatoes, tomato paste and parmesan products were tasted.
Essential ingredients: These spaghetti, tinned tomatoes, tomato paste and parmesan products were tasted.Edwina Pickles

Though you may have perfected your own spaghetti bolognese recipe, it's the base ingredients you use that can make or break your bowl.

Whether it's a 20-minute job on a Tuesday night, or a slow-cooked Sunday masterpiece, spaghetti bolognese in its many forms is a staple of households everywhere. Chefs will extol the virtues of cooking with the finest ingredients but often all we have time to do is race to the supermarket to grab the basics.

Jill Dupleix's benchmark spag bol.
Jill Dupleix's benchmark spag bol.William Meppem
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While one "spag bol" recipe may call for veal mince, and another requires pancetta and pork – tomato, parmesan and spaghetti are the essentials and deserving of a taste test to find the best widely available brands.

Tomatoes were sampled both straight from the can and gently cooked, while spaghetti was judged plain and with passata.

The tasting panel

Gianmarco Pardini Head chef of Sydney's Ormeggio from Italy's Emilia-Romagna region, the birthplace of ragu alla bolognese.

Alessandro Pavoni Ormeggio at The Spit's executive chef, hailing from Lombardy, Italy.

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Callan Boys National food and drink writer for Good Food.

Tips

There may be, literally, an infinite number of bolognese recipes and variations. Choice of meat, wine, herbs and cooking time are a matter of taste and family tradition. But there are many tips and tricks to help your "bol" be the best it can be.

If you can afford the time, the easiest way to enhance its flavour (besides the addition of parmesan rind or dried porcini, perhaps) is to let your sauce spend a night or two in the fridge. Any collagen from the meat will settle, turn to jelly, and become super silky when reheated.

"All the flavours of your bolognese will become more intense the longer it's kept in an airtight container," says Joe Vargetto, owner-chef of Melbourne's Mister Bianco. "But this makes it even more important to use the best ingredients you can, as bad ones will only taste worse."

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The frypan should be really hot to make sure mince is properly seared, says the chef, otherwise it can taste bloody. If the pan is too hot, however, the cooking oil will reach smoking point and your bolognese will have an unwanted smoke taint.

Vargetto also recommends taking advantage of all the great Australian meat currently available that would usually be sold to restaurants or exported. "Independent butchers are stocking ripper stuff right now and will be happy to mince beef flank, pork shoulder, whatever you like. Ragu featuring a combination of different meats with different fat contents is always delicious."

And what of gluten-free pasta? Although the concept may ruffle spaghetti traditionalists, there's no escaping the dietary requirement in 2020. "To be honest, we've found San Remo makes the best," says Ormeggio's Gianmarco Pardini. "We've tried all the brands and it's what we use in the restaurant for gluten-free requests."

Canned whole peeled tomatoes

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Photo: Edwina Pickles

Annalisa Italian Peeled Tomatoes, 400g, $1.40

Score: 3/5

Annalisa started harvesting tomatoes in 1935 and the Italian company now sells canned pomodoro to more than 50 countries. "There's a nice acidity and sweetness here," says Pavoni."I would use these at home. In Italy, our mums go for the cheap brands, too."

Mutti Pomodoro San Marzano, 400g, $3.99 (pictured)

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Score: 4/5
Good Food Taste Test Award: Silver

Grown in fields between Naples and Salerno, the vibrant San Marzano is the only tomato variety that can be used to make "true" Neapolitan pizza. "Fruity and sweet and probably the best tinned tomato you're going to find from one of the big companies," says Pavoni.

Coles Italian Whole Peeled Tomatoes, 400g, 80c

Score: 2/5

Also a product of Italy, there's an unwelcome bitterness found in Coles' tomatoes, which are more rusty brown than brilliant red. "There's also a slight muddy taste, as if they weren't thoroughly washed before preserving," says Pardini.

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Parmesan

Photo: Edwina Pickles

Perfect Italiano Parmesan, 200g, $5.00

Score: 2/5

By law, parmigiano-reggiano must be made to specific standards in select northern Italian provinces including Parma and Bologna. Regulations are more relaxed around what can be called "parmesan", hence this block of New Zealand cheese, which looks, smells and tastes like cheddar.

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Auricchio Parmigiano-Reggiano, 200g, $11.99 (pictured)

Score: 3.5/5
Good Food Taste Test Award: Bronze

A proper Italian parmigiano stocked in major retailers. "It's OK for a commercially produced parmesan, but tastes younger than the 24 months it's supposed to be aged for," says Pardini. "It also lacks the umami punch found in parmesans from smaller producers."

Kraft Grated Parmesan, 125g, $4.30

Score: 1/5

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"This just tastes weird," says Pardini of the powdery stuff native to red-sauce joints and the far corners of home cupboards. "I'm not sure it can even be called cheese." Freshly grated parmesan will always be more delicious, says the chef, and adding leftover rind to bolognese enhances the sauce's flavour.

A tube of Mutti Double Concentrated tomato paste.
A tube of Mutti Double Concentrated tomato paste.Edwina Pickles

Tomato paste

Leggo's Organic Tomato Paste Triple Concentrated, 500g, $4.50

Score: 2/5

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Featuring less than 10 per cent Australian ingredients, Leggo's certified-organic tomato paste has a distinct bitterness that makes it a poor option for building sauce on, says Pardini. Triple-concentrated pastes are heavily reduced, but that doesn't indicate quality.

Remano Tomato Paste Triple Concentrated, 280g, $1.99

Score: 3/5

"The acidity needs to be a bit more balanced, but otherwise this isn't bad at all," says Pavoni. Aldi's paste is made from Australian tomatoes and caramelises nicely with carrots, onion and celery to form the backbone of a successful ragu.

Mutti Double Concentrated, 130g, $2.29

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Score: 4/5
Good Food Taste Test Award: Silver

"The acidity and texture are really good," says Pardini. "If you're going to spend six hours cooking a sauce, you should use a quality tomato paste like this one." An extra thumbs-up for the squeeze-tube packaging, convenient to store in the fridge and add to sauces at leisure.

Garofalo spaghetti,
Garofalo spaghetti,Edwina Pickles

Dried spaghetti

Barilla Spaghettoni No.7, 500g, $2.40

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Score: 3/5

A pasta that remains off-white when passata is added, rather than allowing tomato to soak through and turn the strands red. Spaghettoni should also be thicker than regular spaghetti, but there was no discernable size difference between the three pastas tasted. Otherwise, totally fine.

San Remo Spaghetti, 500g, $2.60

Score: 3.5/5
Good Food Taste Test Award: Bronze

Standard-issue spag that took the shortest time to cook to al dente. "Supermarket pasta is unforgiving and never any good if you overcook it," says Pardini. "Even an extra 30 seconds is too long. You need to remove it from the water at the exact time so it has a nice, firm bite and doesn't break."

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Garofalo Spaghetti, 500g, $2.69

Score: 4/5
Good Food Taste Test Award: Silver

Garlofalo has been making pasta in Gragnano, Italy, since 1789. "This absorbs the sauce really well," says Pardini. "You can feel the difference in texture on your tongue with this spaghetti. It's more porous than the others." Available from Coles and independent grocers.

Good Food Taste Test Awards

Look out for the Good Food awards logos on winning products in supermarkets and grocery stores – your guide to the best available.

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Gold Score 4.5/5

Silver Score 4/5

Bronze Score 3.5/5

Callan BoysCallan Boys is editor of SMH Good Food Guide, restaurant critic for Good Weekend and Good Food writer.

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