Ragu Bolognese

A great recipe: ragù bolognese

Ragù Bolognese

Spaghetti Bolognese is a typical Britalian dish created bearing in mind the ethnic Italian origin but adapted to suit British taste. This dish doesn't exist in Italy - the original dish originates in Emilia Romagna and it's called tagliatelle alla Bolognese. The main difference is that flat ribboned pastas are used instead of spaghetti and the ragù sauce doesn't contain herbs at all.

Genuine ragù Bolognese is a combination of at least two types of meat, like lean minced beef and pork, plus oil and butter, a little wine, an onion, plump ripe tomatoes and tomato paste.


25g (1oz) butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium-sized onion, chopped
250g (9oz) minced beef
250g (9oz) minced pork
6 tablespoons white wine
1kg (2lb) polpa di pomodoro (tomato pulp)
1 teaspoon concentrated tomato purée
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Method

Heat the oil and butter in a pan and fry the chopped onion. Then add the meat and fry until golden brown. Stir in the wine, tomato pulp and tomato purée. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Cover with a lid and leave to simmer for about 2 hours stirring from time to time.

Serve with freshly cooked tagliatelle and sprinkle with freshly grated parmesan, if desired, but purists like this dish without.

A few cans and et voilà! Dinner!

1. A can of corn: Corn Fritters: Your starter

Make a pancake batter (English or American? I imagine that bother would work!). Drain the corn of all the liquid, keeping some to mix into the batter. Add the corn and some chopped coriander (not absolutely necessary). Mix. You could also add chopped spring onion and green chillis. Fry in vegetable oil (each should be about 5 cm in diameter...quite small actually). Serve 3 person. Top with yogurt or sour cream. I wonder what they would really be like. Definitely a starter.

2. A can of Smoked Oysters and a can of tomatoes: Conchiglie with smoked oyster sauce: The main course

Sauté some plain white onion in a little olive oil. Chop in a c an of good, plain Italian peeled plum tomatoes and add to the pan. Season with salt, pepper, thyme and chopped parsley and let it cook for 10 to 15 minutes on a low simmer. At the end, add a tin or two of smoked oysters. Mix into the tomato sauce together with the oil they were marinated in. Add more chopped herbs for colour. Serve on shell-shaped paste. No cheese.

3. A can of pineapple: Griddled pineapple: Dessert

Heat griddle for 5 minutes. Lay out the pineapple on a tea towel or paper towel and lightly sprinkle with muscovado sugar. Cook on he griddle until the sugar is caramelised. Put pineapple on a plate, top with sour cream/yogurt/cream. You could top with chopped nuts of your choice.

Pesto Sauce

I have a pot of basil growing in my garden and last night, I had a craving for pesto sauce to go with some pasta. First I wondered how healthy it might be and then whether or not it was cost effective to make your own. The ingredients are as follows:

basil leaves
pine nuts (or walnuts) (so not good for people with a nut allergy)
olive oil
Parmesan cheese
garlic

I suppose it depends on whether or not you use these items in other recipes. This is more of a summer dish and so you could grow basil in a pot in the garden or in a window box. That would make it cost effective. I think that you would need the entire window box because it takes quite a lot of basil to make the sauce (1 cup of leaves for two to 3 servings).

Many people use olive oil already and if you use it sparingly it should last a long time. I have found that it is cheaper in cans (larger quantity, therefore cheaper per unit).

Pine nuts are not that expensive but I wonder what else you could use them in. Some accidentally got into my granola and they were fine but I think they may be quite oily. Perhaps they would be good in salads as well.

Garlic can easily be grown in the window box with the garlic. I say this but I have never tried to grow garlic. I shall look it up and report back! I don't think it is that expensive and many people already use it in other recipes.

Parmesan cheese can be expensive. It is cheaper if you buy it in blocks and not already grated!

So, here is my recipe. I halved the quantities in the Silver Palate Cookbook (p. 80, 1979) but still found that there was too much olive oil. I would suggest trying it with 1/4 cup of oil instead.

1C basil leaves, washed and patted dry
2 gook sized cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
1/2C chopped walnuts or pine nuts
1/2C olive oil (I suggest 1/4 or a 1/3 C)
1/2C grated Parmesan cheese
(1T Romano cheese - I didn't use this cheese and it was fine)
salt and pepper to taste

I find this enough with a bowl of pasta to feed me in the evening but if you want to flesh out the meal, you could have a salad to start with.

My courgettes (zucchinis) are growing in leaps and bounds so I will be looking for recipes. Any suggestions?

How to save money according to a newspaper!

This morning, the Observer (which is the Sunday version of the Guardian), an English newspaper, included a section entitled 'How To Save Money: Shopping & Leisure'. I've had a look through and there are some good ideas, but when they come to the suggestions about food shopping and cooking, there are a few problems. Yes, the ideas are good and would save money. However, they forget that people buy a lot of products because they will save time.

One suggestion was to make your own pasta sauce instead of buying one. Some sauces can be put together easily and quickly and yes, they do taste better and you do know what went into them. However, it takes time to track down recipes if you have never made your own sauces before. Moreover, certain sauces, such as bolognese, take 15 minutes to prepare but up to 3 hours to simmer. So, pasta sauce suggestions please! One of next post will concentrate on those.

Another idea was to make your own hummus. I have tried this several times without making a hummus I like as much as the one I buy. However, I will try again this summer and see what I can come up with. Recipes for that would be appreciated as well.

It is also suggested that instead of buying packaged salad that you buy a 'proper' lettuce and grow much of the rest yourself. I'm sure that you can see the problem with this as well. Many people don't have the time or a place to grew salad greens. And if you do, you need to have made the philosophical decision to spend more time and energy on sourcing and preparing your food.

This leads us back to the previous post about the necessity to make a conscious decision to change and to adopt a 'plan'. I made the decision years ago. In fact I can't even remember when. I am a product of the late 60's so perhaps my beliefs were formed then. However, I do from time to time stray and buy time saving products. In the past I have felt guilty about this but not any more. Sometimes, you just need to take the easy way out but obviously, not all the time if you want to save money and eat better.

Here is a link to my bolognese sauce. As I said, it take a lot of simmering so you need to do this as soon as you get in at night to be ready for the next evening or make it on the weekend.