The Ridiculous Amount Of Wine In Anne Burrell's Pasta Bolognese

No one can question Anne Burrell's culinary savior faire. Her resume reads like a list of the finest wines, each accomplishment and accolade a little more decadent than the last. A teacher at the Institute of Culinary Education, a cookbook author, a chef at New York's famed Savoy, and of course, a star of cooking shows like Secrets of a Restaurant Chef and Worst Cooks in America, Burrell really has conquered a wide swath of the cooking world (via Food Network).

A lot of Burrell's on the job training took place in some of the most beautiful regions of Italy, according to Food Network. There, she worked at La Taverna del Lupo in Umbria and La Bottega del 30 in Tuscany. So, it's probably fair to say she knows quite a bit when it comes to all-things Italian.

One recipe that Burrell shared with her fans is for her pasta Bolognese, and it certainly has people talking, particularly about the amount of wine it calls for. It does seem like a ridiculous amount of wine, even to a novice cook. However, if you watch the video of Burrell making this rich meaty sauce on Food Network's YouTube channel, she concedes that it is a lot of wine, but also articulates that it does indeed have a real purpose in the cooking process. So, how much wine is in Burrell's pasta Bolognese?  

Burrell's pasta Bolognese recipe calls for three cups of red wine. She uses a Cabernet, but says a "hearty" red wine is really the key. Burrell argues that while it might seem like an excessive amount of wine to add, it really brings the sauce together. Additionally, she notes in her video that the wine will reduce by half and that it helps scrape "the crud" from the sides and the bottom of the pan while adding layers of flavor. However, a writer from Kitchn found this amount of wine to be too much for their liking when they made it, revealing they were not able to achieve a "balance" with the flavor and suggested the amount of wine actually overwhelmed the sauce. 

That said, this may just be a case of, as the French would say, chacun à son goût. A blogger for Just Pinch Me calls Burrell's bolognese a "beautiful thing," and the Smitten Kitchen said they "loved" Burrell's bolognese. In addition to using a lot of wine in her bolognese recipe, Burrell adds a "big, high seasoning" of salt, sharing the reason foods taste so good in restaurants is because they are seasoned properly (via YouTube). Still, the amount she pours into the pot may raise an eyebrow or get the salt police wagging their tongues, more so than wine enthusiasts getting up in arms over three cups of wine.