EDC Bolognaise

(Recipe taken from Everyday Cooking for Every Family)

The quest to find my perfect bolognaise continues. After trying Dani Valent’s recipe I realised that I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to spagbol, the orange and star anise flavours in her recipe threw me a little bit. I decided to give the EDC cookbook version a go, but I’m not giving up on the former yet.

Ingredients

1 onion, quartered

1 clove garlic

1 carrot, roughly chopped

80g celery

50g pancetta/bacon (I had bacon in the freezer)

50g oil

400g beef, minced in the Thermomix

50g red wine

350g tomato puree

2 tbsp tomato paste (optional, I’d definitely recommend it though)

S&P to taste.

Method

• First things first. I bought some beef topside cubes from the butcher, and froze the meat for about 20 minutes (during this time I prepped my vegetables, it all ties in rather neatly!)
• I popped the slightly frozen meat in the TMX bowl and minced it for about 10 seconds/speed 7. I wanted my meat a bit chunky so I stopped here, but you can always check and see whether you’d like a finer mince.

• Place onion, garlic, carrot, celery and bacon into the TM bowl, and chop for 5 seconds/speed 6. I actually had diced bacon, so I added this in after chopping the veggies.

• Add oil and saute for 3 minutes/100 degrees/speed 1.
• Add mince and cook for 10 minutes/Varoma/Reverse/Speed Soft (add red wine at 5 minutes).

• Add tomato puree, paste, salt & pepper. Cook for 15 minutes/Varoma/Reverse/Speed Soft. Leave the MC in lid in an inclined position to prevent the sauce from spitting. I also put a paper towel over the cover to catch any splashes.
• As usual, I made this sauce on a weekend and left it in the fridge for a couple of days for the flavour to develop. I realised that this sauce was a lot drier than the other recipe, so I retained a bit more salted water from cooking the pasta to mix in.
• All in all I felt that this recipe suited my palate better, however I’m definitely aiming to make a few tweaks to Dani’s recipe, as I felt that overall the sauce was much richer than this one and could be ideal for me without the orange and star anise.