Yes, it's another one of those damn cooking posts.

So you want to eat some Bolognese sauce? Or at least a pseudo-Bolognese sauce that tastes just like Mama* used to make it? Serves 4-ish or 1 buttertroll
*  Not guaranteed to be anthing like the way your mother cooked it, or indeed anything close to being authentic Italian. Still tastes like the mutt's nuts** though. 
**  Not actual dog's bollocks 



You need:
1 medium onion
5 gloves of garlic
2-3 tomatos
tomato puree
500g of lean minced beef
a healthy splash of red wine
a selection of herbs especially oregano, majoram, basil, and bay leaves

You may want:
mushrooms
optional spicy non-italian twist: chilli sauce


Peel your onion (bonus points if you use a mutant onion like me)

finely chop the onion and the garlic and add that to a saucepan. Sauté in olive oil.


Slice and dice your tomatos (try to save the juice) and add them to your sauce pan. Reduce. This make take some time. I went off and had a cigarette and watched a film:


ACTUAL SPOILER: Turns out Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father. Who'd have thought it? 


Once it's reduced, add tomato purée and your exciting mixture of herbs (I use a mixture of dried herbs because I am too lazy to hunt down a decent greengrocers.).


Wack in the red vino. While doing that why not pour yourself a glass, cooking can be a thirsty business.


If you want a spicy tomatoy beefy surprise for your hard working taste buds add a delicious spicy sauce at this point. I use Sriracha because it gives you the exciting "morning after arse burn" that all spicy food aficiandos crave.

Here you should taste the tomatoey goodness. If it needs salt, add some Soy Sauce for it provides a salty flavour without any grittiness. If the tomato sauce is a bit bitter and acidic, add milk for the alkaline nature of milk offsets the acidity of the tomatos. If you add too much chilli, add a drop of lemon juice, I don't know why it works, but it does.

Let the sauce simmer and bubble for a while until you have reduced the tomatos to a goop and they are no longer solid. Should take about 10-15mins at a medium heat.


Fire up another hob and add a frying pan or wok. In said frying pan/wok add the optional sliced/chopped mushrooms or just go straight into adding the beef. Brown the beef but DO NOT cook.


Add the sauce and cook. Turn down to a low heat and simmer as long as possible. The longer it cooks at a low heat the tastier it will be. In fact if you can, cook the morning or the night before eating. If you are lazy and slovenly like me, however, you can eat immediately.


Serve with your favourite pasta or as a filling in a delicious baked potato (recipe to follow) or even in a sarnie. Yum yum.