Spaghetti Bowl
This is basically Spaghetti Bolognese – except someone from Bologna probably would disagree. And I don’t like the name Spag Bol so I’m calling this Spaghetti Bowl. Oh and there’s olives in it. So I’m thinking about calling this heart-healthy.
There is another Spaghetti Bolognese recipe on this site. On the old (and often inaccurate) recipes of twimii’s past post.That recipe is correct. You just need to let all the liquid in it reduce down. Is it a proper Spaghetti Bolognese? I don’t think so. But it is tasty.
I had some gluten-free spaghetti in the cupboard. It’s been there for about a year. Gluten-free spaghetti does not taste as good as the real thing. I’m not going to even try and pretend that isn’t the case. It doesn’t taste quite right, I find, unless it’s a little bit lathered in fatty sauce like Béchamel sauce or even just butter.
So if you are making this with gluten-free pasta be sure to boil it in salted boiling water with a bit of olive oil, drain thoroughly and stir through some melted butter. And sprinkle with a bit of parsley.
What inspired me to make this?
I made this today because I had to use up that litre of milk you’ve seen in the last two recipes. I had intended using it in to make crème pâtissière. But then I went off that idea. So I thought about using it to make Béchamel sauce for lasagnes. I also had some gluten-free pasta sheets in the cupboard. And you don’t notice that the pasta is gluten-free when it’s smothered in all the rest of the stuff that’s in a lasagna.
As I said I added in some olives. I wanted to make it somewhat heart-healthy.
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Ingredients
- olive oil
- 1 onion, peeled and minced in a food mixer
- 2 small/medium sized carrots, minced in the food mixer
- some inner celery sticks, minced in the food mixer
- teaspoon Italian herbs
- 600g beef mince
- 12 rashers/streaky bacon, minced in the food mixer
- 2 tins (400g) plum tomatoes
- 2 large cloves of garlic, minced or finely grated
- glass of full bodied red wine
- 1 teaspoon brown sugar
- pinch of Cayenne pepper
- 1 jar of black olives, drained
- bunch of basil leaves
- Parmesan cheese, optional
- chopped parsley
Instructions
- Heat a little olive oil in a large saucepan. Add in the minced onion, carrot and celery. Stir around until the mix has softened. Mix in the Italian herbs mix.
- Add in the minced rashers (bacon). Stir around and when it has all turned a pale opaque colour, bit by bit stir in the minced beef. When all the beef has browned. Stir in the tinned tomatoes, garlic, Cayenne pepper and glass of red wine. Break up the plum tomatoes - I used a potato masher to break them up. Once this is all come to a boil stir well, reduce heat to low-moderate and leave to simmer for 45 minutes.
- Stir in the drained black olives and leave to simmer for a further 20 minutes.
- Taste and see if it needs more sugar, spice or salt or wine. Adjust according to taste. When happy take off heat and stir in the basil leaves. Leave to cool for 15 minutes.
- Serve in bowls with some spaghetti, with some melted butter stirred through and sprinkled in chopped parsley.
