I fry the meat (hackfleisch), garlic & onions with herbs & seasoning in olive oil on a low-mid temperature, add specific ingredients when the meat goes brown (eg. diced Mushrooms, Aubergines).

Then add the tomato sauce (Pomodoro) & allow to slow cook for 45 mins. Add a little water.

Mmmmmm...

...add a little cream, cook spaghetti. Serve with grated Parmesan or Pecorino (even better).

What is great about this dish is that there are many different ways to cook it. Italians comments especially welcome as I have often wondered over the years if I've strayed too far from the conventional way of cooking this.

Add finely grated carrot

I assume that the thread title should have been "How do you make your spaghetti with a variation of ragu'-alla-bolognese sauce"?

I don't make it, I harvest it from trees.

Yes! This is how it is done.

Call me stupid but.... should I have made the sauce myself (I do have a blender)?

Sammyboy, what is it with your badly aimed groaning?

When I was young, my mother used to make a (tomato based) sauce with bacon and chicken livers which was surprisingly good.


For me:
Butter + flour in pan until lightly browned, add about 1c cream (or milk - because of my tummy, I use milk) and one packet (200g here) cream cheese along with grated grana padano or parmesan.

In separate pan, heat olive oil, cook thinly sliced garlic and a shallot until softened, add peeled deveined shrimp. Cook through.

Drain excess oils off shrimp, add shrimp, garlic and shallot to cheese sauce.

Serve over pasta of choice.



Most often though, pasta is a "lazy night" dinner and is jar sauce + a tin of diced tomato mixed with some frozen italian mix veg and browned sausage.

I said Spaghetti, aaaaaaaaaaahh! What have I said wrong?

Yep, that's the beauty of it - everyone has their own little secret ways that make their spag bol the best in the world
One of my mine is a glug of Lee & Perins & a tablespoon of Thai fish sauce.
Also, fennel as part of the base soffrito works a treat too.

Although anyone who uses large round chunks of carrot should, frankly, be quietly taken out back & put out of their misery.

If you like, I could cunningly change the title to 'How do you make your Spaghetti Sauce?' and then all of us who 'corrected' you would look daft.

If you ask about Bolognese Spaghetti this is how I make it.

I heat oil in a pan, sometimes olive oil. I put minced meat and fry it until it is brown.

Then I add Barilla base for Bolognese which contains onion, carrot and everything else needed. I add salt and that is it. I cook that for about 15 min.

Add spaghetti and bon appetite.

Perhaps it is I who have it wrong?

I hardly ever eat "spaghetti" as opposed to using fusili or penne (and have recently picked up some gigli) as they hold onto the sauce better and after all, the best part of a pasta dinner is the sauce, isn't it?

I do like a proper beefy dark ragu, but it's also like the following as a lighter sauce.

- Onions, celery, carrot . . . softened
- Prosciutto, in small pieces, fried
- Equal quantities minced veal and minced pork, browned with the above
- Chopped tomatoes in sauce
- White wine
- Beef stock

Cook for a long time and keep topping up with stock.

+ whatever herbs you desire, basil, oregano, marjoram etc.

Simple, but satisfying.

variations on this sauce are as many as grains of sand...

I'll point you in the right direction for the original sauce and then you can add anything you want...

ingredients
Celery
Carrots
Onions
-no garlic-
mince meat (half lean - less than 10%fat, half fat - between 15% % and 20% fat)
Fresh tomatoes
Tomatoes puree (you can omit this if you can get some really good tomatoes
Red wine
meat stock cubes (ideally homemade, otherwise get the organic varieties)
thyme
rosemary
bay leaves
olive oil
S&P

Proportion of ingredients - each of the 3 veggies must be the same quantity, add them all together and that's the amount of mince you need, add the meat and the veggies and that's the amount of tomatoes you need. wine, 1 bottle per kilo of meat. herbs, 1 sprig each per 1/2 kilo of sauce (meat+veg+tomatoes+wine)

Chop (cube) the vegetables to something the size of half of 1/2fr coin per side (you want to keep the texture and not end up in a much, so use a knife and not a food processor for this). Mix all the veggies and the herbs,

preheat the oven to 200C

in a large pan, pour a little bit of oil and fry the mixed veggies in small batches (you want to fry them not stew them, they will release a lot of water while cooking so keep the heat pretty high). no seasoning yet.

once all the veggies have been fried, tip them in a large baking tray (you may need to use 2) and mix in the lean mince meat, then cover with a layer of fat mince. season the top layer with S&P. the total thickness of the layer shouldn't be more than 1 ans 1/2 inch. place in the oven and bake until the top layer is browned and slightly burned (the heat will render the fat from the fat mince and make it treacle down into the leaner underlying ingredients, flavouring them with the seasoning). give the mix a good stir and bake for another 30 mins.

have a beer...

after the beer, skin the tomatoes (blanch, ice water, peel) , then tip the mix from the baking tray in a large pot and stir the lot over medium-high heat. once hot, add the stock cubes and the wine. boil to reduce the liquid and then add the tomatoes. stir until everything is well mixed and add enough water to top up the pan brimful. let the sauce go up to boil, then reduce to a gentle simmer and simmer along until is well reduced (but no so reduce that it sticks to the bottom). This may take a while (I usually leave it overnight). if you don't keep mixing it the fat will rise to the top and it can skimmed easily before finishing it

cool and either freeze in freezer bags (make sure you expel the air before freezing) or serve, loosening it up with a bit of your best olive oil and boiling water from the pasta. stir in a bit of chopped flat leaf parsley and grates some parmesan on the plates.

incidentally, this is traditionally served with tagliatelle and not with spaghetti...

500g Durum wheat, 6 eggs pinch (10g) salt water need a bit of water, mix well and leave for two hours.
Rollout and cut or use a spaghetti press. Quick boll until just under al-dente using a sieve.
My favorite topping is to fry some Speck and onion julienne with garlic, mince can be added but I like using seafood. Add diced tomatoes, basil twig and a few chopped olives.
Now it gets fuzzy, spoonful of tandoori a dash of sojasauce, tamarind, cumin, pepper.
Serve with a dollop of Jogurt
To die for.

How do I make my spaghetti? here is one of my favourite recipes, it calls for linguine but spaghetti works as well.
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/fo...y-Sauce-104390

No but thanks, I prefer the honest version (unless you really think its better?)

• fine chop onions, celery, carrot, garlic
• fry the above in 1/2 butter 1/2 olive oil on a low heat until golden brown, soft and sticky
• add diced pancetta
• add minced meat (1/2 veal, 1/2 pork) and brown
• soak dried porcini mushrooms in hot water
• add 1 tbsn flour to mince when it is bown
• turn up heat and add 1 glass red wine, let it reduce
• add soaked porcini mushrooms, keep the juice
• add 1 stock cube to the porcini juice and put in pan
• bring to boil then turn down, cover and cook slowly
• after +- 1 hour add a tin of chopped tomatoes or passata
• leave it to cook very slowly for as long as possible (at least 2 hours)
• soak some chicken liver in milk (just a few)
• 10 minutes before the ragu is finished, remove chicken livers from milk, blend or chop them and add them to the ragu, stirring them in
• add a little of the milk too
• turn it off and let it the sauce sit for a minute
• season to taste

Why do you need a blender?