Spag Bol

Spaghetti Bolognese is a classic. Everyone should know how to make a good one.

Ingredients

  • 1 medium onion per person
  • 1 can chopped tomatoes per person
  • Garlic cloves
  • Beef stock or a stock cube
  • Tomato paste
  • Pasta
  • Cheese

Method

For the Bolognese

  1. Use a saucepan big enough for the number of people you are cooking for
  2. Small dice the onions
  3. Add the diced onions to the sauce pan which is dry (no oil is needed)
  4. Cook on medium low until the onions start to soften, about 3 to 5 minutes
  5. Add your mince and stir until all of it is brown. Do not turn up the heat as this might dry out the mince
  6. Add crushed garlic and cook for about 30 seconds
  7. Add the cans of chopped tomatoes
  8. Add beef stock or a stock cube
  9. Add a squirt of tomato paste
  10. Turn up heat on sauce pan to get the liquid boiling. Do not walk away.
  11. Once boiling, turn the heat down to a gentle simmer so the liquid is blipping over

What you are doing is starting to reduce the liquid so that your sauce is thicker. The thicker it is, the better it will stick to the pasta.

You can do the part below now or in 10 minutes. Waiting improves flavour but make sure the heat has been turned down on the sauce.

For the pasta

  1. In a separate pan, boil salted water. You must add salt or else your pasta will be bland
  2. Add pasta to the boiling salted water
  3. Turn the heat down to medium. You do not need a lot of heat to keep the pasta cooking
  4. Cook the pasta, following the instructions on the pasta packet
  5. Grate the cheese
  6. When the pasta is cooked to your liking, drain over bowl to retain some of the pasta's cooking water
  7. Put the drained pasta back into the saucepan you cooked it in
  8. Add to that pan a little of the pasta water. A small glug. This helps keep the pasta separate
  9. Taste your sauce and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper
  10. Add to the pasta the sauce from the other pan
  11. Coat the pasta in your sauce

Plating up

  1. Warm some plates
  2. Put pasta and sauce on the warm plates
  3. Add any cheese
  4. Enjoy