I’ve been meaning to write this up for a while, but I only make it once every few weeks, and I’ve forgotten each time before now.
I’d call it a Bolognese, but from what I’ve heard, it’s not particularly close to authentic. And don’t expect a detailed recipe. I cook by the seat of my pants. 😉
Anyway:
| Meaty Pasta Sauce |
Recipe Type: Dinner
Author:
Prep time: 30 mins
Cook time: 2 hours
Total time: 2 hours 30 mins
Serves: 8
A kinda bolognese sauce. Heavy on the meat. Light on other stuff.
Ingredients
- Beef/steak mince. I normally use an 800 gram pack, though I’ve used 500g-1kg before now. I far prefer lean steak mince. For Americans, mince = hamburger, I believe. Or maybe ground beef.
- Pork Mince. 500 gram pack. Normally the healthy living one, which is lower fat.
- Unsmoked streaky bacon. 1 pack. I guess you could use pancetta. I never have.
- Tomato passata. 1 500gram pack
- Tomato Puree. Half a jar. About 150grams, but I just dollop it out with a spoon.
- Balsamic Vinegar. 2 tablespoons. – optional. I like the flavor, but I can see how some might not. You can always throw some into a single serving, to see how it is. Though make sure to boil it off a bit if you do.
- Red wine. About a third of a bottle. I don’t measure it.
- Worcestershire sauce. about a teaspoonful. I just glug in what feels right.
- Herbs. I’ve got a mix that works well from Just ingredients. A light handful. Sesame seeds, sea salt, basil, thyme,oregano,pepper,rosemary mostly. Before I used the mix from Tescos, and it’s pretty similar. Picture 6
- Beef Stock cube.
- Olive oil for frying stuff. A glug, to give the big pot a light coating on the bottom.
- 2 medium onions. Or a similar amount of frozen if you’re lazy like me.
- 2 teaspoons chopped garlic. Maybe 2 cloves or so if you only have fresh. Or aren’t lazy.
Instructions
- Start heating the oil in a big pot. I use a stock pot for this. Mostly so I don’t slop it everywhere. Generally a 4 or so, out of 6 on my hob.
- Chop up the bacon. I use a food processor for this, because I’m lazy.
- Fry the bacon. You want it all to be cooked. Picture 13, as long as the ordering isn’t screwed up.
- Add the garlic and onion. Picture 12
- Cook for a while, till the onion’s softened and begun to go translucent. Add the herbs, the vinegar and the Worcestershire sauce. You’re adding the vinegar now to boil off the acidic edge. Cook it a while longer. Picture 9
- At this point, I put the mince through my food processor. I don’t like stringy mince and have yet to master not getting it. It works best if it’s a little frozen, so it chips up. But not straight out the freezer either. Today, it was totally defrosted. Hence picture 3. That’s a mix of the two meats. I found it works better to deal with both at the same time. Did it in two batches.
- Add the mince to the mix. Work it round (I use a wooden spatula) to break it up. You don’t want meatballs.
- After it’s mostly browned, add the wine. It doesn’t matter if you still have uncooked mince in there. It’ll have plenty of time to finish off, and the additional liquid speeds it up. Picture 7.
- Leave to cook for a while. Maybe 3 or 4 minutes. Picture 6 is after this time. That liquid is about 2 cm deep. depends on how much wine gets used. I only had a quarter bottle this time.
- Add the passata. Add the tomato puree. Add the stock cube, crumbled. I actually used 2 oxo cubes. Not so good for salt (bit under 2 grams), but it does serve 9. Mix well. Picture 1.
- Cover on the hob, turn down (I put it at 2 out of 6) and leave to simmer gently for an hour and a half or so. Probably worth stirring every so often, but it doesn’t need constant watching. Every 30 minutes should be more than enough. And if you need to leave it longer? It’ll be just fine. I normally end up sticking on pasta after the timer’s gone off. A couple of hours cooking time won’t hurt. (with the lid on. Lid off, you’ll lose too much liquid) Picture 14 😀
Serving size: 300ml
Notes
It freezes well, and makes 8-9 portions. Picture 16 🙂 Remember, I ate a portion.
After this, serve on pasta. Add a topping of grated parmesan if you want 🙂 Picture 15
It freezes well, and makes 8-9 portions. Picture 16 🙂 Remember, I ate a portion.
Yes, the gallery isn’t exactly in a good order, but that’s a side effect of how I uploaded it. 🙂 You get the idea.
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