You might think that one Spaghetti Bolognese recipe is as
much as a person could need, but I love pasta – really, really love it – and I
have two favourite ways of making this gorgeous, infinitely crowd-pleasing
dish, according to my mood. While the other (slightly healthier) version could
be seen as my attempt to get pasta off the sofa and out the door with its
trainers on, before coming home for some carrot sticks, this recipe wraps the
spaghetti up in spoonfuls of rich, delicious sauce and gooey melted cheese and
pays (almost) no attention to the five-a-day or calorie-counting. Sometimes,
when it’s been a long day, this is exactly what I need. If I really feel like treating myself, I make some fresh pasta to go with it - try it, it's much easier than it sounds.
Ingredients
1 large onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 tbsp pesto
Olive oil
Oregano
200g lamb mince
150g tomato puree
A big glass of red wine
Sugar
Salt and black pepper
Parmesan
Cheddar
Dried spaghetti, to serve
Serves 2, with
some left over
This is a pretty simple recipe, but once you’ve made the
sauce, it’ll really benefit from being left to simmer for a little while, so
allow some extra time if you can. Start out by peeling and dicing the onion and
the garlic, then pop in a large pan with a generous splosh of olive oil and the
pesto. Stir well to spread the pesto about, then turn up the heat to medium and
leave it to sizzle for a minute, until the onion is starting to soften and a
wonderful smell of basil and garlic is rising from the pan. Add a generous
sprinkling of oregano to the pan and the red wine.
Once the wine has mostly disappeared, add the mince to
the pan and break it up with a wooden spoon. Season with a little salt and
plenty of black pepper – one of this recipe’s key ingredients. Keep an eye on
the meat as it browns (you don’t want to keep frying it once it turns from pink
to brown as you’ll make it chewy) then add the tomato puree and about half a
pint of cold water. Stir well until the water and the puree are nicely
combined, then add a teaspoon of sugar (it might seem odd to put sugar in a
savoury dish, but it helps counteract any sourness from the tomato puree). Pop
a lid on and leave the sauce to bubble for about half an hour, or longer if
possible.
When you’re ready to serve, grate a few handfuls of
Parmesan into the sauce and stir it through – the wonderfully rich, salty
flavour of this cheese will really give the sauce a kick. Finally, stir the
spaghetti through the sauce and serve topped with plenty of melting cheddar,
and a large glass of red wine on the side – a big plateful of comforting
luxury.