Spaghetti Bolognese
What’s your favourite dinner? The one that makes you smile when you reminisce and remember your younger self eating it. The one you make for your own kids now and that you want them to love. The one that weaves it’s way through your own memories. The comfort food dinner. If I’m honest, for me, it’s spaghetti bolognese. I have many memories attached to the iconic dish, many of them around it’s evolution in my cooking world to the dish I make today. Now my kids have many memories around ‘Spag Bol,’ as it’s affectionately known here, and it’s the one meal unfailingly met with smiles at every serving and the one they now want to learn to make themselves. Indeed I imagine as their version evolves so too will the flavour and their own memories around the dish.
My first encounter with a bowl of noodles encased in meaty tomatoey sauce was in a family restaurant we visited to celebrate family milestones and special occasions. My family didn’t know any Italian folks nor were my parents particularly adventurous in the kitchen so any pasta dish beyond Kraft Macaroni Cheese from a box or tinned spaghetti seemed very exotic. After much nagging my poor mum who wasn’t particularly adept in the kitchen gave it a go. With no recipes or friends to guide her she cooked up some dried pasta pouring the wiggly worm like strands into the bowl and topping it with tomato paste. I don’t need to explain how that went except to say from there it was Campbell’s tinned Bolognese sauce all the way….for many years.
In my early 20’s, chatting with an older friend who was quite an accomplished cook, she was horrified by my bolognese journey and set herself the task of helping me master the art of the wholesome favourite. More cans and short cuts ensued but we were at least on the way to homemade version of some sort. This one involved Campbell’s again only this time a can of their condensed tomato soup and a dash of curry powder….. I know. But in my defence I was young and still pretty inexperienced in the kitchen. I thought I was almost Italian and indeed was finally able to teach my mum how to make ‘proper’ spaghetti. As stir through sauces appeared at the supermarket Mum would bounce between them and the tomato soup and curry method, both obviously usurping the tub of tomato paste on hot pasta method.
Now I’m the mum and my kids want to know how to make our family version of the classic dish. My eldest son, who’s nearly 23, is heading off with his friends on an adventure early next year. They’re planning a half lap of Australia heading west, touring in their 4WD’s camping and living off grid. I’m all parts excited for them and terrified. It’ll be the longest he’s been away from us and we’ll miss him enormously. Last Christmas one of the gifts I bought both boys was a recipe journal with plans to write in any favourite dishes they want to be able to make for themselves in their own homes in years to come. Boy 1’s first request was Spag Bol, but here’s the thing….After decades of making something by sight, smell and feel I had to really think about how I create something that’s second nature. It’s forced me to slow down and really note how it all comes together and record it for posterity as much as pass on to him.
So with your indulgence, I hope you don’t mind pasta two weeks in a row, I thought I’d share with you our version of the aussie Italian hybrid that’s equal parts a nod to Australia’s multicultural heritage as it is to the evolution of my cooking skills and our little family’s food story.
***A little note on my method for cooking my sauce. You’ll note that after bringing everything together on the stove I cover the pot and pop it into the oven for a few hours. I stumbled on this idea when two commitments collided but I needed dinner ready for a visit from my diabetic dad. I suspected that on a low temperature I could let the pot bubble away in the oven without a lot of supervision as opposed to cooking it on a stove as I had until then which of course requires your attention and stirring. Not only did the sauce look after itself that afternoon but the richness it developed in the oven versus the stove was a revelation. And, as I did that long ago Sunday with a get together with the neighbours, you can relax and enjoy a little glass of wine while dinner bubbles away. You can still cook yours on the stove if you prefer as my son will need to do on a camping stove in the wilds of outback Western Australia next year.
Ingredients
2 tb Extra virgin olive oil
100 gm prosciutto, pancetta, bacon or ham (you can even use left over roast pork chopped up)
1 large onion finely diced
1 carrot finely chopped or grated if you prefer. The kids can help you with that step perhaps.
½ celery stick finely chopped
1Kg beef mince. Don’t choose the lean one, all the flavour is in the meat fat.
3 garlic cloves crushed or grated
1 tb dried oregano leaves
2 tbs tomato paste
2 400 gm cans of crushed or chopped tomatoes PLUS two cans of water/beef stock
2 beef stock cubes if not using beef stock for above
1 700g bottle of passata
A generous grating of fresh nutmeg
1 tsp of salt flakes
Black pepper to taste
Preheat oven to 180c.
Over a medium flame on the stove warm the olive oil in a heavy based pot that has a well fitting lid for later.
Sauté Prosciutto, bacon or whatever pork product your using and cook until starting to crisp at the edges. Add onion, carrot and celery to the pot and turn heat to low cooking gently for up to 10 minutes until soft and translucent. Return heat to medium and pop the garlic and nutmeg into the pot warming a minute or two until fragrant. Push all that to the edges of the pot and drop the mince in the pot increasing heat to med-high. Leave the mince whole for a few minutes letting it sear and brown before turning the meat whole and repeating that sear again. Once both sides are brown you can start breaking up it up to continue browning the mince. When almost don’t stir the vegies and prosciutto/bacon into the mince. Add the tomato paste to the mixture, stir through thoroughly and let the paste cook off for a moment or two. Turn heat to high and pour in the wine letting it bubble up and cook off for a few minutes reducing in colume slightly.
Stir in tomatoes and passata, water/stock (pop the stock cube in now if using in place of stock), oregano and salt and pepper. Bring to the boil, cover with a lid and place in the oven. After the first hour remove and stir. Pop it back in the oven for another hour and your done. Check for seasoning and adjusting as required.
***Notes***
If you think the sauce is getting too thick too quickly you can add water to return some moisture to the dish.
If you need an extra to hang out with the neighbours/read a book/play with the kids/ do the shopping etc turn the oven down to 160c. It should buy you another 45to sixty minutes but keep a little eye on the moisture.
As I mentioned previously I don’t have a lot of gadgets including a slow cooker. If you want to be uber organised you could probably do this in the slow cooker. You might like to use this handy tool to convert my instructions.
A weird but tasty addition is some leftover roast pumpkin mashed into the sauce just before going into the oven. Trust me…Delicious but shhh don’t tell the hubs I fed him pumpkin.
