There is a lovely smell wafting up the stairs from my kitchen, a bit like the old Bisto add with waves of intense deliciousness. The cooking begins with onions, then adding rosemary and bay, browning the meat, a sprinkling of flour then chopped tomato and tomato puree, leftover red wine then stock, salt and pepper. Everything left to simmer over a very low heat for about an hour, until everything is thick and nicely merged. I then add masses of chopped flat leaf parsley and fine-tune the seasoning.
Serves 4
Prep: 25 min
Cook: 60 min approx
1 onion
1
sprig rosemary
2 tbsp
olive oil
1 bay
leaf
2
tomatoes
1 tbsp
tomato puree
1 carrot
500g pork
mince
½ tbsp
flour
200ml
red wine
250ml
chicken stock (cube is fine)
25g
flat leaf parsley
Halve, peel and finely chop the onion. Strip the rosemary spikes from the stalk and chop to dust. I always start ragu cooking in a spacious frying/sauté pan and then when all the ingredients are in the pan, transfer to a regular saucepan. So, heat the oil in a spacious frying/sauté pan over a medium heat, stir in the onion and cook briskly to start then reduce the heat but stirring often, with the chopped rosemary, bay and a generous pinch of salt. Continue until the onion is glossy, then reduce the heat even more and cook, stirring occasionally, until slippery soft, the rosemary aromatic. Place the tomatoes in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Leave for 40 seconds, drain, quarter, remove the skin and chop. Scrape and cut the carrots into small dice. Add the mince to the softened onion, increase the heat to medium stirring as it browns then dust with flour, stirring until disappeared. Add the wine, stirring as it bubbles into the meat. Stir in tomatoes, tomato puree, chicken stock and carrot. Bring up to the boil then tip into a medium sized, lidded pan. Simmer, stirring for a few minutes then turn the heat very low and leave to simmer, giving the occasional stir, for at least 45 minutes until very thick, all the ingredients merged into a thick, luscious, juicy rather than wet sauce. Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt. Fish out the bay leaf. Serve now or reheat later, stirring finely chopped parsley leaves into the ragu just before dishing up.