Bloke's Cookbook - Bolognese

For many of us, the classic Spag Bol is one of the first things we learn to cook. It was the first meal I cooked for myself. Everyone seems to learn it a different way and this can lead to some truly hideous combinations, such as a university chum who, short of tomatoes, used tinned vegetables.
The traditional Italian tomato sauce which creates the dish is called a Ragu, which is a mixture of tomatoes, celery and carrot and ground beef which cooks for a minimum of 3 hours. Also in my recipe book's bolognese sauce are half a pint of milk and the same of dry white wine.
It is a marvellous dish but it takes an age and is not one you'd normally want to worry yourself with. What I've knocked up is something that cooks for around an hour. It's not a fast dish but there is at least a chance that you'll get home and get to eat it before you need to get up for work the next day.

In this recipe, I use pesto. Pesto is chopped basil in oil, sometimes with cheese. In the absence of really good quality fresh basil (which you can buy but it can be expensive) I use pesto. You can buy pesto in a jar from the supermarket. It's usually preserved in oil but it doesn't keep very well and within a couple of weeks you'll end up with a range of exciting moulds over the top. I have a cure for this problem. After you've taken the pesto you need out of the jar with a spoon, fill the jar back up with olive oil and keep it filled to the brim. This way, you can use the pesto for months without the mould destroying it. You might get some mould around the rim of the jar but you can take that off with a cloth. If the olive oil looks wierd after it's been in the jar in the fridge, bear in mind that chilled olive oil solidifies and it might not be cryptosporidium.

As for the beef mince, try to buy the darkest mince that you can. Beef that's pink hasn't been aged well and hasn't been exercised. It's unlikely to have lived a happy life. It also won't have been hung, a process which improves the flavour of the meat. Hanging for 3 weeks or more will give you a far better flavour.

Interestingly, meat sauce in Bologna is never served over spaghetti. I prefer not to use spaghetti at all in my cooking, since it's such a pain and I can't see the point. For this sauce you could use Fusilli, Penne or Tagliatelle.
My version of this classic will serve 2 with a bit left over.

You will need:
1 largeish onion, chopped;
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced;
Olive oil;
1 400g tin Italian plum tomatoes;
Tomato puree;
250g beef mince (or lamb if you have to);
Pesto;
Mixed dried herbs;
Salt and Pepper;
Parmesan cheese;
Pasta;
One medium saucepan with a lid for the sauce and one large saucepan with boiling water for the pasta.

Take your saucepan, and place it on the hob on a medium heat. Put a goodly amount of olive oil in (enough to cover around 1/3 of the bottom of the pan) and when the oil starts to bubble add the onion, and stir to cover the onion with oil. Turn the heat down to low. The onion has to cook slowly. If it's cooked fast it'll brown but the slow cooking will make it sweet. Let it sizzle on a low heat until it's softened - probably around ten minutes.

Next add the finely sliced garlic. Stir this in, and let it simmer for a few minutes.

Next add the beef mince. Turn the heat up to medium, and keep the mix moving. This will allow the beef to cook without burning. Once the mince has browned, put in some salt and pepper - several good twists of each. Mix again. Throw in a pinch or two of mixed dried herbs (but not too many because they'll make the sauce gritty). Stir. If the sauce starts to dry up, add some more olive oil. You can be pretty liberal with it since it won't taint the sauce in any way. If any beef gets stuck to the bottom of the pan, use the spoon to scrape it off.

Now add the tin of plum tomatoes. If they aren't pre-chopped, then mix them in and chop them in the pan. To get the sauce out of the tin, fill it around half-full of water, swirl it around, and add it to the sauce. Stir in.

Now add the pesto - a large heaped teaspoon - and mix in. If you want to use fresh basil leaves, you can. Simply get a dozen or so leaves, tear them by hand (don't chop them) into pieces and put them in the sauce.

Finally, put in a hefty squeeze of tomato puree. Stir it all in.

Put the lid on the pan and turn the heat down as low as it'll go. Now you need to leave this to simmer for an absolute minimum of 30 minutes. An hour is better. The longer you leave it, the better the sauce.

Once it's simmered for a while, come back to it and take the lid off. There'll be plenty of excess liquid and that needs to be boiled off otherwise you'll end up with a watery sauce. Turn the heat up to medium-high, and at the same time start boiling the water for your pasta.

Use the time that the water takes to boil and the pasta takes to cook to boil down the tomato sauce so that it loses much of its moisture. Keep stirring it otherwise it'll burn on to the bottom of the saucepan and the flavour will be ruined.

When pasta and sauce are done, drain the pasta, place in a serving bowl and then put the sauce over the top.

Finally, use a potato peeler to put shavings of parmesan all over the top, and serve.

Variations:
I sometimes add fresh mushrooms to the dish. The mushrooms should go in around 20 minutes before the end of the cooking time or they'll be soggy by the time you're ready to eat. Keep them in fairly big pieces, stir them in, and leave them to simmer. They'll give you a darker sauce than you'd otherwise have.


Drink with: This is a day-to-day meal, so pick your poison.

Ease of cooking and preparation: 4/5 - No special skills or equipment required.

Mess Factor: 4/5 - Two saucepans, one of which will need to soak.

Leftover value: 4/5 - Good cold the next day, poor reheated. Fine in a sandwich.