How to make Jamie Oliver’s bolognese sauce (with beer!)
I only discovered a few years ago that you can cook well with beer. I thought it was strange: you drink beer, you don’t put it in your dish. Well, I was very wrong about that. Because I think beer bread is absolutely delicious (although that’s technically more baking) and beef stew with dark beer can also be truly heavenly.
And if anyone knows what they’re talking about when it comes to this, it’s obviously a professional chef. Jamie Oliver, for example, has an incredibly delicious recipe for a bolognese sauce for your pasta — with beer.
How to make ‘a very British bolognese’
That’s what Jamie Oliver calls his sauce himself, so if you’re going for a fully authentic Italian dish, this recipe probably isn’t quite right for you… Consider yourself warned. One more tip from Jamie himself: this sauce is perfect for making in large batches and then freezing portions of it. Noted.
- Place a large, shallow pan over medium heat. Finely chop the rosemary and add it to the pan with a spoonful of olive oil to fry it.
- Add the mixed vegetables, cook for ten minutes while stirring regularly, and finely chop the chestnut mushrooms in the meantime. Add them to the pan along with the minced meat, breaking it up with a spoon. Cook this for 15 minutes, or until golden brown and caramelized.
- Add the Pale Ale and bring it to the boil, then add the tomatoes and one more tomato tin filled with water. You can mash this finely with a potato masher. Then let it simmer for another hour over low heat.
- For two people: cut the lasagne sheets into two-centimetre-wide strips.
- Boil them for three minutes in a large pan of salted water, then remove them and add them to two portions of your bolognese sauce — adding some of the pasta cooking water if necessary.
- Sprinkle the cheese over it, and tadaaa: you’re done.
I wouldn’t dare say that I know better than Jamie Oliver, but I’m still tempted to customize this. First, I’m going to try making it in my slow cooker — I think it will be incredibly delicious. And I don’t like Cheddar over my pasta (but that’s a matter of personal taste), so I’m going to use a different cheese for that. But this is definitely going to become my comfort food meal for the foreseeable future.
Read also:
- 7 things you didn’t know yet about Italian tomato sauce
- Budget cooking: canned tomatoes
- Recipe: the iconic Marinara Meatballs from restaurant Jansz.
Source: Jamie Oliver
