Recipes - Spaghetti Bolognese

A few important points before I begin:

• It's bolognese. Bolognaise would be the french version, but it's an italian dish, so there isn't a french version.
• Parmesan Cheese is a seasoning on this, not an ingredient. Sprinkle it over the top, don't add a half-inch thick layer as a topping. It's not a pizza.
• I know, I'm a hypocrite. All this snobbiness and then I put sultanas in it. But that's the way Laura likes it, and I'm whipped. Also, I like it. However, see the note about sultanas at the end.

Ingredients

• Medium sized Onion
• 3-6 cloves of Garlic
• 500g Beef Mince
• 3 400g tins Tomato
• 1 1/2 cups Beef Stock
• 1/2 cup Red Wine
• 300g Tomato Puree (or Paste, depending on where you live)
• Basil
• Parsley
• 1 Carrot
• 1 Courgette (zucchini)
• 1/2 cup Sultanas

• Pasta

Method

Set a slow cooker to high. Chop the onion. Slice the garlic. Put these, the beef mince, and the tinned tomatoes into the pot. Stir it up until the beef is broken apart. Add the stock, red wine, and tomato paste. Stir it up again.

Add the herbs. If you're using dried herbs, you want about a tablespoon of basil and 2 teaspoons of parsley. If you're using fresh, you ought to know how much to use.

Peel the carrot, and wash the courgette. Using the peeler, thinly slice both lengthways into the pot, and stir it up again. By the time this is cooked, you'll barely be able to tell they're in there. If you're cooking for a kid who seems to have a veggie radar and you need to be even more subtle, grate them. Add the sultanas.

Cook on high for anywhere between 5 and 7 hours. If you want to go out, cook on low for 8 to 10 hours.

Cook your pasta, put it on a plate, put the bolognese on top of that, and sprinkle parmesan on top of that. Serve with a fork and spoon.

Notes

If you don't have a slow cooker, get one! If you don't want to get one, you can use a saucepan - but you'll want to soften the onions and garlic in a tablespoon or so of olive oil first, then add the beef and brown it. Then add the rest. Simmer it for at least a couple of hours on the lowest heat you can manage, but unless you've got a decently sealed saucepan lid you'll want to keep your eye on the liquid level in there, and stir it every 15 minutes or so. No such problem with a slow cooker.

Laura hates chunks of onion, so I chop mine super-finely. Depending on who you're cooking for, you may like to keep the chunks as big as just cutting the onion in quarters and cutting each quarter in half through the middle.

3-6 cloves of garlic because that's something people can be very picky about. I love the stuff, so I use 6.

The leaner the beef the better, it's worth paying a little more for the premium stuff - especially with the slow cooker, as you don't get a chance to pour off the excess fat like you can with a saucepan.

When it comes to tomatoes I like to use filleted rather than chopped or crushed, but after cooking them for 5 hours it's all just liquid anyway.

If you don't want to use sultanas because you want a totally authentic experience, replace them with a couple of tablespoons of white sugar.

I like spaghetti with my bolognese, but any sort of pasta works really. Quick pasta lesson: boil some water in a pan, then add plenty of salt. Make sure the salt all dissolves before you add the pasta, but don't add the salt before the water's boiling. If you do, the water will go a little green and it doesn't taste as good as it could. Without a doubt, pasta should definitely be cooked al dente ("to the teeth") which means it's still got a little bite left in the centre. For fresh pasta, this is normally 2-3 minutes; for dried it's 8-9. As soon as it reaches that texture, strain it and serve it.

This make a serious amount of bolognese - it should serve about 8 people, or 4 Samis. Since I'm cooking for two most of the time, and eating the same meal 4 nights in a two is a bit lame, I usually make a lasagne out of the leftovers. I might post that recipe shortly, but not tonight.