Spag Bog… Well, not really.

Spaghetti Bolognese is a popular dish across Europe, the USA, Australia and as far as I know, much of the rest of the world, and just as it is popular in many countries and households so, there are just as many recipes for it.

Spaghetti Bolognese, however, is not truly an Italian dish.  Any self respecting Italian will politely explain that if you are making a rich meaty sauce, such as Bolognese, then you need to marry it with a broad pasta tube which is capable of swallowing the sauce whole!  I’m not very well up on Italian pasta names as I have never lived in Italy, and indeed, despite it is only a few hours drive away, have rarely visited it.  All that having been said, I love the textures and flavours generated by the thin spaghetti and the rich sauce.

The next thing is that, apparently, a Bolognese sauce should have little if any tomato content.  Well again …  I’ve never been served Spaghetti Bolognese in Italy (surprise surprise), but I have eaten it in France, Germany, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the USA and every time it has been a delicious tomatoey meaty sauce!

Finally, I know that a true Bolognese sauce takes many hours to make.  I never have enough time, although I do prepare this sauce in advance and leave to develop overnight.  I finish the sauce, store in the fridge, and then gently reheat it when I’m ready to serve.  But I also know that, following the recipe and cooking the sauce immediately before serving is great too.

Many years ago I had a young lady staying here with me and one day I duly served my version of Spaghetti Bolognese.  She watched me cook it with interest and not a small smile on her face, before announcing that what I had made looked delicious but was not Spaghetti Bolognese, which got us into a big discussion about what it truly was. However I duly continued with my recipe and after lunch there were several clean plates.   It’s also true to say that the same afternoon, (It was the middle of summer) we were all sunbathing by the pool when the said young lady got in the pool, immediately complaining that my lunch was making her sink.  I simply pointed out that as she was swimming sans maillot, she didn’t have the added buoyancy afforded by such apparel.

So here is my recipe for a  dish I better call

Spaghetti with a rich meaty sauce

Serves 4 people

Preparation about 15 minutes

Cooking time about 30 minutes

 

For the Sauce

400g minced beef (lean)

2 medium onions, chopped

3 cloves of Garlic (finely sliced)

4ozs mushrooms (chopped)

4 rashers streaky bacon

Herbes de provence

Tinned tomatoes

Tin Tomato puree (4oz)

Cup of sweet white wine

Grated parmesan cheese

For the Pasta

You need a pasta that is large enough to hold the meaty sauce, or, do like I do and ignore everybody and use Spaghetti

 

Method

Chop the bacon into small pieces then In a large casserole, fry till crisp,

Add the minced beef and onions and fry everything till the onions are translucent

Add the apple, peeled, cored and chopped into small pieces

Add the wine, garlic, herbes de provence and tinned tomatoes

Bring to the boil and stir in the tomato puree

Bring to the boil again and add the mushrooms

Simmer about 15/20 minutes(while you cook the pasta)

(At this point the sauce can be kept overnight to allow the flavours to develop)

Bring a pan of water to the boil

Add the pasta and boil for 7 to 10 minutes depending on preference

Drain pasta and rinse with more boiling water, then add a small amount of olive oil to the pan and heat. Add the pasta back into the pan with the oil and shake pan to coat pasta

Serve pasta, and sauce, and sprinkle parmesan cheese over the top

 

I often add chorizo, but on this occasion I knew one of my guests didn’t like Chorizo so I omitted it.

I served it with garlic bread and a glass of wine!

 

Hope you enjoy it as much as we did

Traditional Burgers (Ian’s Recipe)

 

Serves 4

500gms minced (ground) beef
2 medium Onions
2 good tablespoons of rolled oats
1 Tbls worcestershire sauce 
2 Tbls of Tomato Ketchup
I Tbls Olive oil
a dash of sea salt
a medium egg

Method    In a food processor, mince the onion then add the Worcestershire sauce, tomato ketchup, sea salt and olive oil and mix a little more
Add the beef, oats and egg and whiz a little more to mix thoroughly.
Adjust the consistency by adding more oats if it's too wet

Take a small ball of the mixture and squeeze tight to compress the mixture together.  Flatten with a spatula and fry gently in a little olive oil
Serve immediately
Or allow to cool and freeze until needed

Spicy Sausage Rolls

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	Some friends are coming for aperitifs this evening, so I decided to make a few sausage rolls.   Here in France meat in pastry products are not common.   It is hard to find any of those traditional staples of British fare, such as Steak Pie or indeed the humble Sausage Roll. I also know from past experience that my French friends love the culinary differences between our two cultures and thoroughly enjoy some of the things I cook that they otherwise would have little knowledge of.  Of course, I'm never sure whether that's because of the difference in our cultures or simply because they can't recognise the food I have tried to prepare. So, this morning I made Spicy Sausage Rolls
	Here's the recipe, and it really is simple I use shortcrust pastry, but lots of people prefer puff pastry.  Either way, you should end up with a delicious, slightly different, sausage roll
For the Sausage Meat	400gms minced pork 100gms minced beef 2 good tablespoons of rolled oats a good dash of worcestershire sauce a couple of drops of tabasco (I put in 4) a dash of sea salt a beaten egg
For the Pastry	For the pastry I prefer to use a shortcrust pastry,  Here's a recipe I often follow: Jean's Shortcrust Pastry
Method	Pre heat the oven to 190°C Mix together the meat and then stir in the oats and salt. Beat the egg and add the worcestershire sauce and tabasco then stir this into the meat mixture, adjusting consistency by adding more oats if it's too wet Make the pastry and roll out into a thin sheet. Roll the meat mixture into a thin sausage and place on the sheet of pastry towards one end. Carefully roll the pastry around the meat and cut once it has enclosed it. Place this seam side down on a baking sheet and repeat for the next roll.   Continue until you run out of pastry....or of meat!!!! Brush with a little milk and make several pricks in the pastry to allow steam to escape Bake in the middle of the oven for 20 minutes, or until brown.  Turn over and bake the bottoms for a further 5 minutes Allow to cool and then cut into bite sized pieces

If you're feeling lazy, you can simply use a pre-made pastry, like I often do.  and you can substitute sausage meat for the minced pork and beef, but if you do this, do pay attention to what you are actually getting in your sausage meat!!!!!

Saturday night sauce with Pasta

I tend to cook a roast dinner on Sunday and see that as the "first" meal of the week.  Of course, it's not necessarily meat and it not necessarily roasted... but you get the idea.

One of the results of this is that I like to use up whatever is in the fridge on a Saturday night, that is if I haven't been dragged out to eat in a restaurant somewhere....  Well, I can live in hope can't ???

The way this meal often works is I think of a dish I would quite like to make, but then simply adapt it as I cook so that I can include whatever I want to use up.

This week, I decided to make a spaghetti bolognese, although I'm sure the purists will realise that it is far removed from the true bolognese sauce served in Bologna.   This one turned out quite nice so I have tried to remember what I did....

INGREDIENTS

about 400gms ground beef
1 can plum tomatoes
1 medium Onion
1 rasher of bacon
1 nice eating apple
a few peas
Mushrooms
a handful of herbes de Provence
a lot of concentrated tomato purée
Some apple juice
enough spaghetti for 4

METHOD

• In a frying pan I fried the beef and the herbes de provence in a little olive oil then set aside in a saucepan
• Next I fried the onion, roughly chopped, again in a drop of olive oil and added to the sauce pan
• The rasher of bacon was next, torn into little pieces and fried before adding to the sauce pan
• Into the saucepan I then added the can of tomatoes, the tomato purée, the apple, peeled and cored and cut into small pieces and the apple juice to keep it moist
• At this point I also added a slug of sherry as I didn't have any red wine open
• The fridge revealed a small dish of left over cooked peas and these were added to the pot as well as all the mushrooms I found
• I brought everything to a rolling boil for a minute or two and then reduced the heat to a simmer for about 30 mins
• Whilst that was cooking, I dropped the spaghetti into a large sauce pan of boiling salted water to cook
• When cooked, I drained the spaghetti, rinsed with boiling water, returned to the pan, added a little olive oil, neated it and then shook the pan vigorously to coat before turning out onto the serving dish and piling the sauce in the middle
• Garnish with a sprinkling of parmesan cheese and some fresh parsley