Time wasters bolognese
Classic Italian ragu: Rich delicious ground beef sauce
Difficulty Level: easy
Ingredients
- – 1 shallot / small red onion
- – 1 large stick of celery
- – A handful of unsmoked pancetta
- – 200g of minced beef
- – 400g of chopped tomatoes
- – 1/2 cup of milk
- – 1 cup of dilute chicken / vegetable stock
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- Extras:
- – Nutmeg
- – Fresh basil
- – Parmesan
Instructions
1) Finely dice the onion and celery into small squares.
2) Melt butter and a drop of oil in a pan and on sauté these on a medium heat until going translucent.
3) Remove the veg. from the pan and put to the side and replace with the pancetta. Wait till it goes lightly golden, then also put to one side.
4) Put the minced beef in the pan (if its basics beef add small amount at a time and spoon off fat…which there’ll be alot of!) and fry until browned
5) Now comes the strange bit which sounds really strange but completely changes the flavour, making it really rich. Add the milk TO the beef and turn the up the heat to medium/high so it bubbles but doesn’t boil. Cook all milk off until you are left with the beef which should be paler in colour.
6) Add the celery, onion and pancetta along with the tomatoes and stock.
7) Cook with no lid on a medium/low heat so it lightly bubbles and go do something for an hour! Check it regularly so it doesn’t stick, add pepper as it thickens.
Extras:
8) As it starts to thicken add a quarter of a teaspoon of nutmeg
9) just before you want to eat add handful of chopped basil leaves and sprinkle parmesan to taste.
I know this sounds like a long recipe – cause it is, but if you put the work in you get the best bolognese ever. Might be more cost affective in big batches.
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