Like many cooks, most of my dishes evolve from one time to the next. Today I hit gold with a spag bol recipe. Best ever.Thought I would record it here so I can find it again and to welcome comments!

It cooks enough for a family of 6-8. Or for two with plenty of sauce for the freezer!

First bit of sauce:
This sauce will be getting blended with a hand blender so no need to chop owt too fine. You need a pan with a lid.
Fry two onions in olive oil. When part sweated and a bit brown add the following:
two rough chopped carrots
a handful of mushrooms
a WHOLE celery plant. (This is essential, just chop it up starting at the top and put the whole thing in except the last inch or two).

Let this fry for a bit.
Then chuck on top 6 roughly quartered tomatoes. Don’t stir them in. Just put the lid on the pan and move it to the back of the hob on a low heat so the celery and onions can cook and the steam will cook the tomotoes.

While that simmers, the meat!:

I used 700g of decent beef mince.
Start frying this in a big pot. Once the mince has started frying crush on top of it one whole BULB (yes a bulb not a clove) of garlic. Stir this in so that the garlic and beef fry together. I also added salt at this point. I then for good measure put 1/3 tube of squirty garlic puree on top. When the beef was cooked, you know that point where its brown and stops sticking to the base of the pan, I added my other special ingredient: Two-three table spoons of Bisto. Just sprinkle the dry powder on and stir it in. It will stick to and coat the beef mince and make it taste extra yummy. Then just as the pan starts to stick I added my tinned tomotoes, just one tin, oh and a small can of tomatoe puree. This bit of fluid stops the mince sticking to the pan.

By now the tomatoes in the first pan should be cooked.
Take this pan off the heat and blend it with a hand blender, nice and fine as my kids hate bits. The celery keeps the sauce nice and thick.

Then just add the blended pan into the pan with the garliccy mince. Stir and simmer for a bit.

Trust me, try it its a brilliant spag bol.

you’ve missed out white wine and milk

Wot no pancetta and sun-dried tomatoes 😆

yes, and the chicken liver.
Is it not accepted now that spag bol is a much abused term for a thing involving tinned tomatoes and a bit of beef mince?

Of course, add tinned kidney beans and it becomes chile con carne
😉

On a serious note the following are lovely in spag bol sauce:
Porcini mushrooms and a couple of teaspoons of cocoa powder (last tip given to me by a flavour chemist!)

-1 no proper mirepoix
-1 beef mince
-1 no lardons or pancetta

iDave has said it all.

Thanks for sharing, but you are so wrong. You’ve made a reasonable ragu at best.

You’d only really add milk if cooking with veal imo

-1 carrots
-1 not cooking it for long enough (needs to simmer for an hour at least to break down the tomatoes)
-1 not cooking everything with the mince
-100 blending it to baby-food
-1000 NO RED WINE????

iDave in his restaurant:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8467045.stm

😉

Almost forgot, I also added a tsp of dried mixed italian herbs (oregano etc).
Would normally add bacon/lardons/ASDA bacon bits, but didn’t have any in and the recipe was fab without.

The blending of the veg, before adding to the mince is really good, you don’t have to mince to oblivion if thats your preference, but you don’t want any big bits in there or it won’t coat the pasta.

iDave in his restaurant:

troo dat

-1 no Marmite.

no pancetta
no wine
no milk

FAILed

edit, just spotted this

Two-three table spoons of Bisto.

Double FAILed

no fresh herbs

ULTIMATE FAIL

You’ve made a reasonable ragu

which, to be fair, is all spag bol is really..

Simmer for an hour?

Stick it in a big pot with a lid, in the oven for as long as you’ve got, start it at lunchtime and it’ll be ready for 8 ish ;p

Simmer for as long as you can, at least an hour.
And of course it is ALWAYS better the next day.

nickc 😆 you got me there!