Spaghetti Bolognese (Edmonds)

I've made a few different versions of spaghetti with meat sauce, but it turs out that I'd never made the Edmonds version. And Reiver quite likes it. And we had a busy weekend and were in need of some good, hearty comfort food, so I figured a nice pot of spag-bol wouldn't go amiss. And I was right! We actually ended up all having seconds and demolishing the whole pot in one night!

Recipe as written, Edmonds recommends this amount of sauce for 250g of spaghetti. I started with that amount, but then ended up cooking up some more noodles to go with the left over sauce before the end of the night. I think you could probably manage to stretch it to work with 500g of noodles. Especially if you added some veg and a little pasta water to the sauce.

Photo goes here.

Spaghetti Bolognese

Slightly adapted from Edmonds

Ingredients

• 1-2 Tbsp. oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 4-5 cloves garlic, minced
• 100-200g mushrooms, sliced (optional)
• 1 bay leaf
• 500g ground beef (preferably extra lean)
• 1/4 c. tomato paste
• 400g diced tomatoes
• Parmesan rind (optional)
• 1 Tbsp. fresh basil, chopped
• 1 tsp. dried oregano
• 2 c. chicken or beef stock
• 1/4 tsp. black peppercorns, ground
• 1/8 tsp. ground cayenne (optional)
• 1 Tbsp. tomato sauce or ketchup (optional)
• 1-2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce (optional)
• 100-200g baby spinach (optional)
• 400-500g spaghetti, cooked
• 1 c. reserved pasta water
• grated Parmesan, to serve
• extra basil, to serve

Directions

1. Heat the oil over medium heat.
2. Add the onion and garlic and cook until softened (~5 minutes).
3. Add the mushrooms (if using) and cook until mushrooms release their juices (~10 minutes).
4. Add bay leaf and ground beef and cook until meat is no longer pink (5-10 minutes longer).
5. Add the tomato paste, tomatoes, Parmesan rind (if using), basil, oregano, chicken stock, and pepper.
6. Bring to a boil and cook for a few minutes, then taste and add cayenne, tomato sauce/ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, and/or more salt and pepper as desired.
7. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, for 45-60 minutes.
8. Bring a pot of lightly salted water to a boil and cook your spaghetti according to package directions.
9. Reserving ~1 c. of the pasta cooking water, drain the noodles.
10. Add the reserved pasta water and the spinach (if using) to the sauce, give a good stir, and cook for another 2-3 minutes.
11. Add the pasta to the sauce, give it another good stir, and toss to combine.
12. Serve topped with grated Parmesan and fresh basil.