I’m a big fan of making your own pasta sauce from scratch. And so today, I’ve made my own bolognese using a very simple original recipe that I came up with on the spot. Here’s how to do it.
500g mince beef
1 onion diced
3 cloves garlic diced
2 fresh tomatoes diced
140g tomato paste
Red wine (I forget how much)
Beef stock about 4 cups
Couple of stalks of thyme
Start off by frying off the onion and garlic until translucent. Add the mince and fry off until its brown, then add the tomato paste and let simmer for about a minute or two.
Add red wine and let it reduce slightly before adding the beef stock and thyme, and let it reduce.
Make sure to stir occasionally and keep tasting. Add a few pinches of salt or sugar to taste, but not too much, as the flavour will become more intense as it reduces.
The real trick I find is, however much sauce you want at the end, make sure you start with double and then reduce it down to about 1/2 of what you start with, so you can get some extra flavour in your sauce.
It might not be thick enough, so you might need to mix in some flour at the end to thicken it up a bit. There’s nothing worse than having a thin and runny bolognese sauce.
So yeah, bolognese is simple 🙂