Mark Bittman's Fresh Pappardelle with Bolognese recipe

Renowned food writer Mark Bittman’s new cookbook, “Dinner for Everyone” (Clarkson Potter, $40) provides a trio of recipes — easy, vegan and “perfect for company” — for 100 iconic dishes, from caesar salad and gumbo to Pasta Bolognese.

This recipe for everything-from-scratch Fresh Pappardelle with Bolognese hails from the latter chapter, which also offers up an easy Pasta with Use-Whatever-You’ve-Got Bolognese and a vegan-friendly Rigatoni with Ratatouille Bolognese.

This one is a showstopper, which includes handmade pappardelle pasta and a long-simmered Bolognese that goes all out with pancetta, beef chuck, pork shoulder and veal shoulder. You’ll want to devote an afternoon to the project, but that time investment comes with an added bonus: enough Bolognese sauce for a second meal.

Fresh Pappardelle with Bolognese

Serves 4

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 small onion, chopped

1 carrot, chopped

1 celery stalk, chopped

4 ounces pancetta, chopped

6 ounces boneless beef chuck, cut into 1-inch chunks

6 ounces boneless pork shoulder, cut into 1-inch chunks

6 ounces boneless veal shoulder, cut into 1-inch chunks

Salt and pepper

1 cup milk

28-ounce can whole Roma (plum) tomatoes

1 cup beef or chicken stock

1 cup dry white wine

2 cups flour, or more as needed

2 eggs, plus 3 egg yolks

½ cup grated parmesan cheese (about 2 ounces)

Directions:

Put the oil in a large pot over medium-low heat. When it’s hot, add the onion, carrot, celery and pancetta. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are tender, 8 to 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, put the meats into a food processor (in batches, if necessary) and pulse until coarsely ground — finer than chopped, but not much. Add the ground meat to the pot and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring and breaking up any clumps, until no longer pink, 5 to 10 minutes. Add the milk, raise the heat a bit and cook, stirring occasionally and scraping any browned bits off the bottom, until most of the liquid has evaporated, 3 to 5 minutes.

Crush the tomatoes with your hands and add them to the pot; stir, then add the stock and wine. Adjust the heat so the mixture just barely bubbles and cook, stirring occasionally and breaking up the tomatoes, until the liquid has evaporated and the sauce is very thick, another 1 to 1½ hours. Taste and adjust the seasoning. (At this point, you can refrigerate the sauce for a day or so or freeze it for several weeks. Reheat before proceeding.)

While the sauce is cooking, make the pasta. Combine 2 cups flour and 1 teaspoon salt in a food processor and pulse once or twice. Add the eggs and yolks and turn the machine on. Process just until a ball begins to form, about 30 seconds. Add a few drops of water if the dough is dry and grainy; add a tablespoon of flour if the dough sticks to the side of the bowl.

Sprinkle the dough with a little flour and cover; let it rest for about 30 minutes. (At this point, you can refrigerate the dough, tightly wrapped in plastic, for up to 24 hours. Let it sit out for 15 minutes before proceeding.)

Set up your pasta machine and sprinkle the work surface lightly with flour. Cut off about one-third of the dough and wrap the rest in plastic or a dishtowel while you work. Roll the dough lightly in the flour and use your hands to flatten it into a rectangle about the width of the rollers. Set the machine to its thickest setting and roll the dough through. If it sticks, dust it with a little more flour. Repeat. Set the machine to its next-thinnest setting and repeat. Each time, if the pasta sticks, sprinkle it with a little more flour, and put the dough through each setting twice.

Continue to roll the dough thinner, changing the thickness only one setting each time (if you try to rush the process, the dough will tear). If at any point the dough tears badly, bunch it together and start again. Use only as much flour as you need to. Pass the dough through the machine’s second-thinnest setting. Repeat 2 more times (by this time it will be going quickly), then flour the dough lightly, and cover. Repeat with the remaining dough.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt it. Heat the sauce in a large pot if it isn’t hot already, then remove half the sauce and reserve. Cut each pasta sheet into rectangles roughly 16 inches long and trim any rough edges. Roll the dough into cigars and cut crosswise to make wide noodles, or attach the broadest (tagliatelle) cutter to your machine and run each sheet through. Use right away or hang the strands to dry for up to a couple of hours.

Add the pasta to the boiling water, and cook, stirring occasionally, for 1 minute, then start tasting. When the pasta is tender but still has some texture (it will take less than 3 minutes, probably less than 2), scoop out 2 cups cooking water, then drain the pasta. Immediately add the pasta and a splash of the cooking water to the pot with the sauce and turn the heat to medium-high. Toss to coat, adding a little more cooking water if necessary to create a slightly creamy, but not soupy sauce. Add more of the reserved sauce to your liking, and save the rest for another use. Taste and adjust the seasoning; then toss with the cheese and serve right away.