[eugene]

I am new to the forum, and I hope this question is fit to this board.
I am going to prepare a bolounese sauce later today. In this sauce I will put milk, white wine, and tomatoes.
In every recipe that I'v seen till now, you have to cook with milk first, only then when its absorbed, add wine, and only after the wine is absorbed, cook with tomatoes.
My question is, why is that all necessary, why can't I just put the milk, the wine, and the tomatoes together and just come back after 2 hours and turn it off?

[foodnfoto]

Because the acids in the wine and tomatoes will curdle the proteins in the milk. If you cook with the milk first and reduce the water that the proteins, fats and milk solids are suspended in, it concentrates those ingredients making them less suseptable to breakage when wine and tomatoes are introduced.

[eugene]

Ok thanks. Do you have any idea however how much the product will suffer from putting all this stuff together?
After all its much easier especially if you want a fast meal and don't have much time to prepare it.

Also, tomatoes and wine can be put together without any bad consequences?
Thanks again.

[Pete]

You can do anything you want to, just be prepared that the dish wont come out the way it should be. Bolognese is a dish that really gets its deep, soul-satisifing flavor from a long, slow cooking process. If you attempt to shortcut the steps the end product won't have the same depth of flavor. It's all a matter of what you are willing to accept. Doing it your way won't make for a bad version, but it won't make for a great version either. If you really want a shortcut spend a few hours making a large batch, properly, and freezing it into portions. That way when you need it you just have to pull it out of the freezer and reheat. It does freeze really well.