I have seen so many recipes claiming to be the ‘best’ or the ‘ultimate’ ragu and when I try them, I’m disappointed. They neither match up to the expectations of the picture nor do they seem to beanything like the Italian dish they’re trying to emulate.

My dish is very straightforward with the exception of the key ingredient. Time. I’ll explain in a moment. But first, the ingredients. You will need:

• 3 tins of plum tomatoes
• 1 jar sundried tomatoes in olive oil/sundried tomato paste
• 750g beef mince (5%/15% fat content)
• 12 herbed beef meatballs
• 1 Knorr Rich Beef Stock Pot
• 1 x 187ml bottle of Campo Viejo Rioja Temparnillo Red Wine (or preferred/available option)
• 1 red onion
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 4-6 sprigs of fresh rosemary
• 200g-250g pancetta
• Olive oil
• Papparedelle pasta (preferably)

Pour some olive oil into your slow cooker. About 3-4 tablespoons worth. Don’t put your slow cooker on yet. Slice and dice your onion first, then put your slow cooker on to the saute/grill setting. Whilst that’s happening, finely chop your garlic.

Once the oil is beginning to smoke a bit, add your onion, give it a stir to coat it in the oil and leave it to soften for 3-4 minutes. Remove the needles from the sprigs and chop your rosemary into small pieces.

Check your onion. It should have softened. If translucent, add your garlic and rosemary and let them cook for 2 minutes. Bring your pancetta out from the fridge.

When the garlic and rosemary are about a minute into cooking, add the pancetta. The fat released will add additonal lubrication to the slow cooker and not cause your garlic and rosemary to burn. Stir quite vigorously for 10-15 seconds then get your mince from the fridge.

Add this in as a block and quickly season with a generous amount of salt and pepper. Break up with your wooden spoon and stir. Once the meat starts to brown, open your tomatoes.

Don’t drain the liquid. We’re going to use this as part of the infusion. Empty the contents and, again, with your wooden spoon, break up the tomatoes and stir. Allow to sit for 5 minutes to let the tomatoes naturally break down from the heat.

Next, we add the wine followed by the stock pot. Watch as the unappealing red and brown mix darkens and richens. Mix in your wine and stock pot until both are fully absorbed.

Pour your sundried tomatoes (including oil) into a food processor/blender and blitz until smooth. If you can get a jar of sundried tomato paste, put it in. Regardless of how you got your paste, add a little bit of cold water and shake around the jar/blender to get the remaining paste. Pour in and mix into the other ingredients. The mix will brighten with introduction of the paste.

Add your meatballs. Cook at current setting for 10 minutes then put to Slow Cook setting for 1 hour with the lid off.

Turn off your slow cooker. Put the lid on but leave a gap of about a quarter to a third to allow natural evaporation.

Wait 24 hours. Come back. Take the lid off and put your slow cooker to its Slow Cook setting. Cook for one hour. You’ll see the sauce has thickened and changed in colour and texture. The meat and tomatoes have broken down quite considerably and the fat released from the mince adding more flavour. But it’s not ragu. Not yet. After an hour, turn off the slow cooker and put the lid vack to its one quarter/one third position.

Wait another 24 hours.

On day 3, the mixture will have broken down and infused even more. When you want to serve, simply Slow Cook one hour before to heat it up and finish it off. The sauce will now be thick. More a coating. Just like how the Italians do it.

If using fresh pasta, heat a pot of water closer to the the end of cooking time and cook your pasta as per the packet (usually 2-3 minutes). For dry pasta, allow 10-12 minutes but take your pasta off the heat one minute before the cooking time states to keep your pasta al dente. Remember, even when draining, your pasta’s still cooking.

I’ve found pappardelle pasta works really well with this. It’s broad, flat and has a thick, dense texture. The ragu coats it beautifully. If you can’t get your hands on pappardele, tagliatelle or linguine will do. For my most recent batch, I had to make do with fresh tagliatelle. Not exactly a hardship.

Why meatballs? This was a recent addition and I find they add a nice little treat. Give 2-3 per person. I leave mine to the end. A bit like the icing on the cake, except meatballs on the ragu. They just end the dish so well.

And that’s it. Serve with parmesan or pecorino and some black pepper. Then, enjoy with a loved one, family or friends. This is certainly something to be shared, loved and enjoyed by more than one person.

If you make this, I hope you enjoy 🙂