The perfect Spag Bol?

[poindextermatic]

My girlfriend won't let me buy Dolmio in a jar (see other pasta post about her snobby food habits) so has any one got a recipe for Spag Bol to make from scratch?
I love my spag bol - give my girl a recipe so she will cook it!

[noah]

bottom of the page, zak's already posted one recently

http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=40214&page=1

[Kumagoro]

if your near a tesco get use the sauce they have in the chilled area with the other chilled pasta. Its in a pot and not a jar, so technically it will be ok hahaha

[Sair33]

My girlfriend won't let me buy Dolmio in a jar...

I don't blame her! It's so easy AND nicer home made

[roacheford]

I don't blame her! It's so easy AND nicer home made

much much better fresh and homemade - add basil and some chillies

[menthel]

Pesto! Ha!

[menthel]

This one takes a while but is nice:

Fry off some bacon or pancetta in olive oil for a couple of minutes and then putin some finely chopped carrot and onion. You could put in celery as well, but I don't like it! Cook the veg until soft and then stick in your mince. Cook until lightly browned. Then put in a small glass of red wine and boil off the liquid. Stick in some tomato puree and water or stock if you can be bothered to form the sauce. Cook for as long as you can stand to, slowly and without boiling. You could add garlic after the onion etc and perhaps some dried chilli. Mmm.

[Zak33]

to make it realy well takes all day...

no kidding. But it's worth it. Sair and I had an excellent day last summer at a cookery school in Devon, a whole day of Italian cookery. Was just simply amazing

And the first thing that went on the hob, was the mince. A true ragu I belive it is....one onion....little oil.....soften the onions...in with a ton of minced beef for 8 people...one rather large glug (teacup size) of red wine, and a bayleaf.

then once boiling gently, heat to the lowest, lid off and just simmer. ALL DAY !!!!

When anyone passes the pot, give it a stir. Low heat, nice pan, it didn't stick and the meats oils keep it moving.

I'm not kidding here.....5 hours!!!!

It just fell apart in your mouth, and tasted simply heavenly. SO>>.when I make Spag bol now I try to get the mince on son as I'm home to eat 2 or 3 hours later.

My other recipe was simply to get the bloke started

[iMc]

What sort of mince do you need for that? Really high quality stuff? or will cheapo do?

Love pasta dishes my fav...

whereabouts in Devon is this Italian place?

[poindextermatic]

to make it realy well takes all day...
And the first thing that went on the hob, was the mince. A true ragu I belive it is....one onion....little oil.....soften the onions...in with a ton of minced beef for 8 people...one rather large glug (teacup size) of red wine, and a bayleaf.

then once boiling gently, heat to the lowest, lid off and just simmer. ALL DAY !!!!

What u dont need any tomatoes or anything at this point? U add them after before serving?

And yeah, what mince - just bog standard minced cow?

[menthel]

The thing about a ragu, or meat sauce, is that no one recipe is correct. You can do whatever you like as long as you enjoy it. Other recipes will use tomatoes, either fresh, tinned, as pasata or even just puree. As for mince, you don't ever want to eat cheap mince. I'm not saying that you sould get a nice piece of steak and mince it (although the results will be amazing), but decent mince with some, but not too much fat will be preferable to mainly soya economy frozen mince. Mince is often ona 2 for 1 offer inthe supermarket and works out quite cheap. However the secret is to cook it slowly, as Zak said (and I hinted at ) so that it becomes tender. Mince cooked/stewed quickly will be nasty. Anyways, I just wrote far too much and now feel faint, although not hungry as I just ate large amounts of malanazane parmigano as prepared by my own fair hands. And the wife opened the wine!

[Sair33]

What u dont need any tomatoes or anything at this point? U add them after before serving?

Yeah... there should be tomatoes in there at that point! (I think he got carried away and missed that bit out!!)

I think chopped tinned tomatoes and a little puree do the job, if you want to get it done in a sensible amount of time, then add some red wine and simmer for ages, as Zak said

I'm hungry now....

[Sair33]

whereabouts in Devon is this Italian place?

It's Ashburton Cookery School. They do a lot of different types of courses, but they are all very interactive and hands-on (which not all cookery schools are).
They are also really good at recommending places to eat and visit in the area etc too.
It was ace fun!! Highly recommended!!

[Zak33]

oh..we did put toms in.....wemade those at 8:30 am......just a nice blend of skinned tomatoes , all whizzed up..

BUT they CAN go in, last thing.....

the mince doesnt need them early on

[iranu]

sPAG bOL. And this is the reason why; my mum was given a recipe by an italian friend of hers (her mother's recipe) in the early 60's and this recipe has passed on through the family, so I'd like to share it with you all.

Finely chop 1 large onion and very gently fry in olive oil. Finely chop some mushrooms and add. Finely grate a carrot and add. Keep stiring Add couple of finely chopped garlic cloves. Add good qulaity minced beef (450g) cook till brown. Salt 'n' pepper plus herbs, (Sage leaf or 2 oregano etc) to taste. Add 1 1/2 - 2 tins of finely chopped plum tomatoes and some tomatoe puree.

Simmer gently for at least 2 hrs. Stir every now and then. Until it looks like spag bol The longer the better.

(You can adjust the ingredients proportions to suite).

People will say CARROT, what, Not in SB sureley? I can say it does work by sweetening the sauce without using sugar. It's barely noticable but gives that something extra imho.

Ragu and Dolmio are over sweetened processed muck imho.

[poindextermatic]

Hmmm, thanks. Am gonna try and make some tomorrow for dinner...
Don't know about the carrot though... I think some red wine will sweeten it enough