Foreword
This is one of my slow cooker recipes.
They are designed to make large amounts of my best recipes with a minimum of effort and minimum of cleanup (tend towards single pot recipes and rely on a stick-blender)
But not time.
Hence these are my 'Sunday Afternoon' specials, prep in the afternoon, cook overnight, check seasoning before work and portion it out Monday evening.
This is necessary, actual real chemistry stuff happens over the 24 hours, it is not really ready to eat until then.
If I were a raccoon, I'd be a fox👉🦊
They're really smart and I'm an extra smart one, with glasses
And a jumper with patches on the elbows.
Indeed Fantastic.
For my Slow Cooker at least 2 of the following recipe will be needed to fill it and there's no point in not filling it. Don't try to brim it, slow cookers don't work if you over fill them.
Ingredients1 tbsp olive oil
4 rashers smoked streaky bacon, finely chopped
500g beef mince (I recommend 15% fat mince)
250g Mushrooms, sliced (optional)
For the bolognese sauce
2 medium onions, finely chopped
2 carrots, trimmed and finely chopped
2 celery sticks, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tsp dried Rosemary
1 tsp dried Basil
1 tsp dried Oregano
2 x 400g tins plum tomatoes
2 bay leaves
70g tomato purée
1 stock cube, beef or vegetable
1 tsp Medium red chilli flakes (Optional)
125ml red wine
75g parmesan grated
Method
My slow cooker recipes follow a certain pattern.
Chop 👉 Fry, browning the ingredients and cooking off the water 👉 Put in slow cooker
Thus:
1) Set up your slow cooker next to the stove, I recommend getting a timer plug for it. Put a large non-stick frying pans on a large ring. I recommend slow cookers that have an 'auto' mode. This mode should start on High and turn down to Low once the food is up to temperature. Once a slow cooker is up to temp, 1 hour on High is the same as 2 hours on Low.
If you've got water to cook off, remember:
1a) Mince absorbs moisture over time as it relaxes and cools. Learn how much you need to leave by practise.
1b) The point of browning the ingredients before they go in the Slow Cooker is to improve flavour, texture, look and remove excess water with high temperatures before they go in the slow cooker.
2) Add Groundnut or Rapeseed Oil to the pan (2 tbsp or 30 ml) and brown off the onion.
3) To the onion, add the carrot and the celery. This is called a Soffrito in Italy. Cook until nicely coloured, cooked, soft and dry.
Tip into Slow Cooker.
4) If you're adding mushrooms, start frying them now, in oil and butter until browned and the water has come out and cooked off
5) Into the Slow Cooker tip the following:
The garlic, rosemary, basil, oregano, plum tomatoes, tomato purée, stock cube, chilli flakes (Optional), red wine and parmesan.
Blitz to a fine sauce with a stick or immersion blender.
Add the 2 bay leaves, stir in.
6) If you're using mushrooms, tip into Slow cooker when ready. Brown the chopped bacon, tip into Slow Cooker, reserving a teaspoon of bacon. Brown mince, cook off some water, add to slow cooker. Do not drain the mince, add it and the juice.
7) Mix, turn up to high. Cover with lid and cook for 1 hour
8) Turn down to Low, set timer plug for 4 hours.
9) In the morning adjust seasoning.
My Seasoning rules
9a) Taste, if it's salty, don't add salt
9b) If not salty, add salt by the ½ tsp. Mix well
9c) Taste. If it's started tasting salty, stop
9d) If not salty and the flavour seems stronger, enhanced, go back to (9b) and continued.
Long and short of it, the salt will enhance the other flavours but only to a point, then it starts tasting salty. Stop there.
9e) Add fresh ground black pepper, mix well, taste and keep going until you're happy with the flavour.
10) Late afternoon/ early evening separate into pots for the freezer, over here we can buy those plastic containers takeaway food comes in. I use those, each one has enough Bolognese for 2 people's dinner. Keep some aside for dinner that evening if you're having it for dinner too.
Serve with good quality Linguine or Tagliatelle.
10 ) Put reserved bacon in cat. (not optional)
See if cat likes beef Bolognese, some cats really like tomato sauces.
If cat likes Bolognese, buy cat a tin of Glenryck Pilchards in Tomato Sauce. It's so stinky that cats with a blocked nose will still eat it when they won't eat because they can't smell.
