This is my pork and beef mince pasta sauce recipe, heavily inspired by my Grandma’s recipe. I cook it in a casserole dish with a lid in the oven for about 4 hours. This is not quick food, but it’s well worth the wait and this recipe makes about 6-7 big portions, suitable for freezing.
Ingredients
- 500g pork mince
- 500g beef mince
- a little olive oil
- 2 onions
- 8 cloves of garlic
- 4 x 400g cans of chopped tomatoes
- 2 x 140g cans tomato purée
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 2 teaspoons brown sugar
- Couple of fists full of fresh basil leaves
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
Process
- Chop the onions and fry them in the olive oil for 5 mins (don’t brown them)
- Finely chop and add the garlic and fry for a few more minutes
- Add the pork and beef mince, fry on a high heat until it’s no longer pink
- Tear up the basil into little bits and add to pot
- Add everything else, mix well and bring to boil
- Put lid on pot, put in pre-heated oven at 150 degrees Celsius
- Cook for 4 hours, stirring once an hour or so
It’s interesting to taste the sauce as it cooks – it really does get better and better the longer you cook it. I used to cook it on a regular stove top but it required almost constant stirring to avoid burning so now I cook it in the casserole dish. Maybe your stove can go lower than mine. A friend tried it with a slow cooker (after frying everything on the stove) and said it works just fine but I’ve yet to give that a go myself. My Grandma used to just sit and stir it all day.
If you like it wetter, add some passata. You can probably leave out the brown sugar – I’ve not really been able to tell a difference with or without it myself.
Serve with some pasta, with plenty of Parmesan cheese and black pepper.
UPDATE: I’ve changed the recipe from 1kg pork mince to 50/50 pork/beef mince after some feedback from friends, and some experimentation of my own. It’s a lot tastier like this and it turns out, this is actually what my grandma used to do!
UPDATE: I’ve changed the recipe, switching out the “mixed dry Italian herbs” for actual real fresh basil leaves. My mum told me that’s what my Grandma used and it really makes a major difference to the flavour.