Tuesday, 1 February 2011

Spaghetti Sauce / Cottage Pie

Hi Again been a few days since last written.
Still been a very eventful time. We had our anniversary on 26th and got a bit of good news about Paul's Kidney. Then 31st Test results came back a bit more positive. No where near out of the woods yet but still a step in the right direction.

Anyway on to the recipe.. This is a recipe I saw on the internet and thought I would give it a try. It came from Antonio Carluccio for a Spaghetti Bolognese.  Paul and I thought we'd give it a try and it is really great recipe.
I adapted a little for Paul's situation reducing the stock so there wasn't too much salt and I changed the wine to a rose as I just kinda felt like it but other than that it was pretty much to the letter...

450g minced beef
180mls Rose
1 Large carrot finely diced
1 onion Diced
2 stalks celery diced
100ml vegetable stock(roughly)
Black pepper for seasoning
2Tbsp tomato paste
Butter or oil
Water


Prep your veg and then in nice big pot add your butter or oil or little of both as I do
add your onion and gently fry for couple of minutes don't let it colour.
Add your carrots and celery and allow to fry for couple minutes before adding your meat.
Brown off your meat for about 10-15 minutes
Add your wine and cook for 5 min or so and then add your stock
Add your Tomato paste and stir through
Allow to cook for hour or so keeping an eye on it so doesn't go dry.. If it looks to going dry can add
little more stock as necessary, I used water by this point to keep the salts reduced.
just at the end taste for seasoning I just added Black pepper

Cook your favourite Pasta and add to your ragu serve and enjoy...

Variation I use for this recipe is to
as it is a lovely versatile recipe is add some frozen Peas or corn or other vegetables just before finished cooking and put some mashed potato on top and it makes a fantastic cottage pie...
 
Variation to your plain mash potato is to add some whole grain mustard to your mash to pep it up a little
Well that's about it for me for now ....
Hope you give this bolognese recipe a try it is so easy and for my opinion is much tastier and nicer than the tomato based sauces we always see...

Catch you next time

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