Slow Cooked Beef Ragu

For me, comfort food is pasta, and nothing warms my soul more than a big bowl of the stuff. On a rainy Saturday, this is a great dish to prep at lunchtime and then forget about until supper. By that time you’ll feel so smug that you have an impressive dinner ready and you’ve barely lifted a finger.

A crowd-pleaser, this is a great dish for a dinner party, for the reasons listed above. Your guests will be so impressed when you whip this rich and delicious dinner out of the oven, looking cool as a cucumber with envious control of your kitchen.

 INGREDIENTS

Serves 6

Minimal effort but takes 6 hours, so you’ll need patience.

Roughly 1kg beef cut into chunks (I use a slow cooked roasting joint if getting from a supermarket, or beef shin if from a butcher)

2 onions, diced

3 carrots, finely chopped

3 celery sticks, finely chopped

6 garlic cloves, sliced

4 tbsp tomato purée

400ml red wine

3 bay leaves

2 sprigs of rosemary, leaves removed and finely chopped

2 x 400g cans chopped tomatoes

A pinch of sugar

400ml stock (I like chicken stock in this dish)

50g Freshly grated parmesean plus extra to serve.

Serve with freshly cooked pasta and lashings of parmesean.

Preheat  the oven to 120C/100C fan

Fry the beef in a large casserole dish in batches till it's brown all over. I don't really season them the beef before I cook it (this is probably the only time that happens) but I think as it's being cooked for so long and so much seasoning is being added throughout it's just unnecessary and I don't want salt drying out the beef. After cooking each batch, I let the fat drain off on a paper towel. Once it’s all browned, keep to one side while you continue with the sauce.

I'm not precious when it comes to cutting the onions, carrots, celery and garlic because it's being cooked for so long it breaks down during the cooking process. Add the holy trinity of onions, carrots, celery   to the casserole dish and fry for 10 minutes. Then add the garlic and tomato purée and cook for a further 2-3 mins. Add the wine, tinned tomatoes and stock and browned beef and bring to the boil. Now time to add some seasoning and put it covered in the oven for about 5 hrs.

After roughly 5 hours, remove from the oven. If there’s any fat on top, either spoon off or I use some kitchen roll gently laid on the surface. Add a pinch of salt and cook uncovered for another half an hour allowing it to reduce. The beef with be so tender you can simply break it up by using a wooden spoon push it gently against the edge of the pan. Alternatively, you can scoop it out of the pan, shred with a fork and then pop it back in. Finish with the grated parmesan and a generous grind of black pepper.

Cook the pasta following the packet instructions and add to the ragu tossing it all togethe Spoon the pasta into pre-warmed bowls, slather with grated parmesan and copious amounts of black pepper and serve.

This makes plenty and it freezes extremely well, so it’s well worth the time and love that goes into it.