Dr Karl’s Secret Slow Cook Bolognaise

• Heat a small amount of the olive oil over a medium-high heat in a big frying pan. Cook the mince in small batches until browned and the meat is sizzling. Set the meat aside.
• Get a big pot and I’m talking a big pot big, like you know several litres!
• Put the pot over a medium-high heat with some olive oil.
• Add a shirtload of onions to the pot! Followed by the garlic. Cook the onions but do not brown them, cook them until they are transluscent.
• Chuck in the meat, then you chuck in the tomatoes. And you chuck in the tomato paste and the carrots.
• And then the most important ingredient is thyme. You chuck in the thyme and you keep an eye on it.
• Basically you are married to the kitchen for the next couple of hours. Do some reading or some exercise but you have to stop it from burning. It will go through a stage where it wants to stick and then it’ll go through a stage where it doesn’t want to stick. You’ve got to keep it going. The volume will drop down and around literally the four hour mark the taste changes. Under the three hour mark it’s basically the same as getting some onions and some mince meat and adding some tomato sauce. That is not bolognaise. But around the three to four hour mark, because the volume drops, there’s a hardened rim around the inside of your big pot. You scrape that and you have a little taste. You go “that’s getting there!" and it gradually gets darker and then it’s up to you for how long you can do it. I try to go for six hours. So, you start early in the morning, by mid afternoon you’re done and it just keeps on cooking.
• Serve with cooked pasta and hard cheese like Reggiano (Parmesan). Cheddar will work. If you think cheddar is too bland, well, just try and find a cheddar that's been matured for two years.
• Put leftover sauce in bottles, maybe 300-400ml in size and you can freeze it, and later you can nuke it!

Want to hear Dr Karl talk about his secret bolognaise? Check out the full Nutrition Science Bites podcast with Prof Clare Collins at Apple https://rb.gy/9tp9vz and Spotify https://rb.gy/9gkuy7

• For less meat, more fibre and lower cost replace half of the beef mince with 4 cans drained lentils. Add the lentils to the bolognaise for the final hour of cooking.
• Don’t have time to stick around, cook half the quantity and transfer to the slow cooker after you have added the carrots. Cook on low for 6- 8 hours.
• For vegetarian bolognaise replace all of the meat with 2 cups yellow split peas. Add extra water throughout the cooking process if it looks too dry. Add 4 cans of drained lentils in the final hour of cooking.
• Try tying the thyme together in a tight bunch with some butchers string – that way you will be able to easily pull all the stalks of thyme out together when it has finished cooking.

Looking for a new slow cooker, check this one out!

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Nutrition information (per serve):

• Energy (945kJ)
• Protein (25.9g)
• Total Fat (8.3g)
• Saturated Fat (2.6g)
• Carbohydrate ( 9.3g), (Starch ( 1.7g), Sugars ( 7.6g), Added sugars (0g), Free Sugars (0g))
• Dietary Fibre (4.5g)
• Sodium (104mg)
• Calcium (117mg)
• Iron (7.6mg)

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