If you have kids, summer officially started last weekend when schools rang their final bells for the year. If you’re a parent like me, you like to have easy to reheat meals stocked up in your fridge or freezer for those lazy days when you don’t want to make a big fuss in the kitchen. Enter Simple Pasta and Meat Sauce, a dish that, assuming you’ve made the sauce in advance, you can have ready in as long as it takes to cook the pasta. This is a basic meat ragu, and feel free to add as many vegetables as you like. I’ve made this before with broccoli and peppers finely pulsed in the food processor, so my kid gets some hidden vegetables. The fennel and onion tend to mask most other vegetal flavours (just don’t tell your kids 😉!) The pasta shape is up to you, although I find either spaghetti or rigatoni are a hit at my house.
Meat Ragu
Makes 2+ liters of ragu
Ingredients
4 tbsp olive oil
1.5 lbs ground beef
1.5 lbs ground pork
3 pc mild Italian fennel sausage, meat removed from casing and casing disposed
1 large white onion, finely diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 medium carrots, peeled and grated on a box grater
to taste salt and pepper
1 pinch chili flakes
1 tsp fennel pollen
750 ml (1 btl) tomato passata (pureed tomatoes)
Method:
1) Add the oil to a heavy bottomed pot over medium high heat.
2) Add the beef, pork, and sausage to the pot, and break it up with a wooden spoon. Mix well and cook for about ten minutes until the meat is separated and fully cooked through (it will be mostly grey with some browning from the bottom of the pot).
3) Add the onion, garlic, and carrot to the pot and stir well to incorporate. Season with salt, pepper, chili flakes, and fennel pollen, stirring well while simmering for an additional 8-10 minutes or until fragrant.
4) Add the tomato passata, stirring well. Pour about ½ cup of water into the passata bottle, swirl it around to collect the remaining tomato puree, and pour that in the pot as well. Stir and taste for salt, adding a bit more if necessary.
5) Place a lid on the sauce and turn the heat down to very low. Let the sauce cook for two hours, stirring occasionally.
6) When the sauce is finished, cook your (or your kid’s) favourite pasta. To cook the pasta, fill a large pot halfway with salted water, and bring it to a boil over a high heat. Cooking the pasta in less water means the water will be much starchier when it’s done, which will result in a more velvet-y finished pasta.
7) Strain the pasta, reserving a ½ cup or so of the cooking water. Put the pasta back in the cooking pot with the reserved water and add enough ragu to coat the pasta well. Stir well and serve!
Note: This ragu freezes well, or it can be stored in a fridge for up to 5 days.