Carmine Costantini, from Osteria La Passione in Melbourne, prepares his ragu bolognaise. Picture: David Geraghty Source: TheAustralian SO a woman walks into an osteria in Melbourne, sits down for dinner, and eats a plate of tagliatelle al ragu bolognese. Oh my. Cue Raphael's cherubs, fluttering their little wings in the small, well-kept dining room; cue the strains of Pavarotti's Ave Maria, drowning out the other diners' yakking on their iPhones. Clearly, this was no ordinary spag bol. So I quizzed the chef, Carmine, on one of his many forays out of the kitchen to check on his diners' happiness. He had been taught the recipe many years ago by his master in Italy, he told me. For the first two years of tuition, he was not allowed to handle the ingredients. His job was to watch. After two years of weekly classes, his master turned to him and asked, "So, do you think you're ready to cook it yourself now?" Carmine Costantini is the chef-owner-patron of Osteria La Passione in Richmond, and appears unlikely to be releasing a cooking app, book of fast and easy recipes or a meal-solution product range any time soon. All that effort to learn one recipe, when you can Google "Ragu Bolognese" in the morning and be sitting down to your dot.com dinner that night? Heritage. Tradition. Slow Food. And really, really Slow Recipes. How very inefficient. How very Italian. For Carmine, a recipe is no mere document but a story, full of colourful characters, history and twists in the tale. So it was that the first half-hour of Ragu Class, one-on-one, was a potted bio of his master, Ernesto Teneggi, a high-profile chef in the 1990s in Sassuolo, a province of Modena, where Carmine moved from Benevento at the age of 16 to pursue a career in cooking. It was the era when chefs were like Mussolini. "He never said anything if I did something right, only when I did something wrong," he says. Years later, after Teneggi had died, one of his relatives revealed Carmine was the master's favourite student. "He told her I was the only one with passion," Carmine says, tearing up. Every time I make the ragu it's emotional, it's a dedication to my master. To the recipe, then. Except it's not about the recipe, silly. It's about the method. The secret is the method, says Carmine. "The ragu will tell you when it's ready," he says. No looking at the clock, that's a bullshit way of knowing when it's ready. Nonetheless, if you are interested in making a woefully inadequate facsimile of Carmine's ragu, here is a rough approximation of what he did. Quantities are restaurant-sized, so for a ragu to serve 10, divide by five. Take 5kg of meat - 50 per cent beef neck, 25 per cent pork and 25 per cent veal neck. Carmine uses dry-aged Chianina beef raised on his farm in Arthurs Creek, and buys his pork and veal from R&A Meats, Carlton. Roughly chop your veggies - 800g celery (grown on his farm in Yea), 800g onions, 600g carrots (mustn't overdo the carrot, it will be too acidic), then mince all the veg in the food processor in small batches. "Ernesto used to mince them in the meat mincer, but you lose too much of the juice if you do it that way," he says. Like any gifted protege, he has improved on his mentor's method. And what if I don't have a meat mincer? Chef looks alarmed and embarks on a spiel about the evils of most pre-minced meat. And, indeed, the mince coming out of his covetable $3000 Italian model looks like wriggly worms, nothing like the compacted stuff you buy at butcher shops. Also, it's important not to handle the meat too much after it comes out of the mincer, otherwise it will toughen up. And you mustn't let it sit too long. Heat your (very large) saucepan, pour in one litre of extra virgin olive oil, then add the minced veggies. When they start to stick, but before they start to burn, turn the heat down and add the beef; you will be cooking the beef first, then the veal, with salt and a little white pepper, then the pork. Cook each batch of meat for about 20 minutes, stirring frequently. Carmine is continually adjusting the heat and adding a little bit of this, a little bit of that. When the combined meats are almost dry and starting to stick a little, add three-quarters of a bottle of red wine (Carmine uses his own-label shiraz) and let it evaporate. Another important thing is the tomato paste. Mutti from Parma is the best brand, says chef, and it's widely available here. How much? You can tell by the colour of the meat after it's added, he explains. Er, yes. Make that approximately 1kg, mixed before adding to the pan with three litres of quality chicken stock (or water). Stir and simmer for about three to four hours, or until the ragu talks to you. A hint: the bubbles will change colour from red to white and the meat will only just be starting to stick. I had a stir after about one hour's cooking and was astonished by the lightness - in weight, not colour - of the meat. Turn it off and stir in 800g of butter, diced. Carmine serves the ragu stirred through his fresh-egg tagliatelle or tagliarini, made with 10 whole eggs to 1kg of Divella 00 flour, a pinch of salt and one tablespoon of olive oil ("which makes it a bit more al dente - another secret I learned from my master"). Another tip: he sprinkles a little Parmesan on the bare plate first. We sit down to lunch - housemade bread and salami, followed by ragu. And, luckily, it was just as good as last time. "Good ingredients make the people happy," says chef. A little too much modesty, I think.