I've made Hazan's bolognese several times. How large was your pot? The larger the surface area, the better the evaporation, so that's why I ask.

It's a 7 liter - 6.7 gallon - pot. I'm not at home now but at work so can't measure the diameter. It's not a tall narrow pot, though. There's quite a lot of surface for evaporation.

I quadrupled the quantitied in the original recipe.

I think it's possible that the quantity you used is the reason the evaporation took longer. I wouldn't hesitate to turn the heat up just a bit to facilitate the process next time.

Hazan's bolognese was nothing short of a revelation the first time I made it!

Yes - I learned the hard hard slow boring way with jam once. If you quadruple the recipe but keep the same surface area it takes forever and ever to reduce. I think I ended up with a syrupy end result and a strong realization that I don't like jam much. And I am not sure how many people I actually like enough to make jam for as gifts - certainly not a quadruple batch worth. Lol.

I've never done it in the oven (different (albeit similar) recipe, but always on the stove, same concept, fairly similar volume). Stirring is important, though one of those battery op stirrers that walk around in your pot might work. Considerations about the oven is if you can find the correct temperature, because it should be bubbling, just lazily, as you said. The other question is how well your oven vents steam. If you're used to reducing other liquids in the oven, then yes (though this is a much bigger volume than the sauce in a braise). I don't know if this is true, scientifically, but from casual observation it seems that steaming off liquid works better if the steam clears away.

mimi, I think the oven would work just fine. I make apple butter in the oven, and chicken stock and chili when I'm busy. I never go above 350F, lower is better, and stir about every half hour or so. I'm not a good pot stirrer, I always think I can do something else and come right back, but it seldom works, so the oven or my Nesco roaster is the device of choice for me when I want to reduce a liquid without constant stirring.

And I particularly hate those little volcanoes of apple butter or chili that pop up when it gets nicely thick, spattering my arms and stove. The oven method saves my arms!

Annie

I make this all the time and quadruple it so I can freeze it. I use an LC 6+ qt oval pot. I find the attention is really needed during the milk and wine evaporation stages. I let the milk simmer go a bit longer to get all the liquid out and turn the heat up a bit after adding the wine to get that reduction done a bit quicker. Once the tomatoes go in, the burner goes to simmer (super low simmer; DCS professional range) and it's on the stove for 8+ hours. I work from home so it's not a big deal to pop in the kitchen from time to time to check on it.

If you wanted to put it in the oven, I think it would have to be after you add the tomatoes. Bring it to a bubble on the stove and then put it in a low (180 - 200; 225 tops) oven. Any higher would cook it too quickly. Think of this sauce as a slow braise.

If you'd like a really nice variation, add finely diced mushrooms to the sauce when you add the tomatoes. They have to be diced so you don't break the integrity/texture of the sauce. It does add liquid so it will take longer to get to the finished product but it adds some really great flavor.

Dees, that's precisely how I think of this sauce - a slow braise. The Marcella recipe does the braising and the reduction simultaneously. I ended up doing only the braising because I didn't realize I should have adjusted the flame higher. I ended up doing the reduction after the braising was completed, so i thought why not decouple the braising from the reduction in a way that will spare me 3 hours stirring? I'm referring only to the stage after the tomatoes are added - not the milk or the wine stages.

I think next time I'll try braising it in the oven and doing the reduction afterwards. See how it goes. Annie, thanks for the encouragement. I think I might also try using some mushrooms.

Thank you all for sharing your tips and experience. This forum is so helpful! I keep learning new things here all the time.

I always cook my "spaghetti gravy" (that's what the recipe I use calls it, but it is a pretty standard meat sauce). I start everything on the stovetop while the oven is pre-heating. When it is all combined and heated thoroughly, I put the pot in the oven starting at about 250 degrees using the convection setting, then I adjust up or down to get the gentle simmer. My sauce does not require any reduction, but it does reduce a fair amount in the 4 to 6 hours that I cook it.