Fantastic Ragu by Carluccio

One night last week we were trawling the books and web trying to find some comfort food.  I had the day off so we thought about a slow(ish) cooked recipe.  The recipe that nearly made it to our table was a Ragu by Delia.  Currently we have Delia Smith's Winter Collection which is rammed full of great comfort food ideas and we were particularly taken by the idea of doing a Ragu.  The only thing that bothered us was that her recipe was for 8 x double potions and as it is just the two of us we really couldn't be bothered trying to reduce the proportions to an eighth!!

That's when we hit the web and searched Antonio Carluccio's website for ideas.  Apparently Carluccio has a book and a TV series coming out soon.  How do I know?  Because my friend is the TV producer and I keep seeing pictures of Antonio on his facebook page!  Although I was very impressed that my friend is rubbing shoulders with such a food hero,  I was even more very impressed with Carluccio's recipe for Ragu see here.

Ragu Bolognese

Now Antonio says that it is only authentic if it is made with tagliatelle but unfortunately as Fran eats gluten-free we had to use the gluten-free spaghetti we had in the cupboard.  The spaghetti we use is delicious by the way but we take his point.  The sauce, however was wonderful and rich and we will definitely be making this recipe again and again.

First, finely chop the carrots, onion and celery and fry with the pancetta for 10 minutes.

Then add the meats and cook for a further 15 minutes.  Add the red wine and bubble for a few minutes and stir in a little stock.

Stir in the tomato paste and some more stock and leave to simmer for 1.5 hours

What you should be left with is a thick, rich, tasty sauce - note the colour change too.

As you can tell we loved this dish. The proportions made 4 (or 3 hungry servings in our case).  The recipe does not give quantities for the stock but we found a pint was ample.  We added a little from time to time to keep the consistency just right.  A little at the end and some seasoning is all that is needed.