I make this once every 3 months, it makes 24 portions so if we have it 1 a once a week it's our quarterly ragu! It freezes like a dream.
Ingredients
Olive oil
2 beef ribs cut into 5cm pieces
500g beef mince
12 sausages (Italian ideally but regardless best quality)
1 garlic bulb finely diced
3 carrots finely diced
2 sticks of celery finely diced
1 large onion or 2 medium finely diced
Chilli Flakes, salt + pepper (and fennel seeds if you like them)
12 cans of chopped toms
1/2 bottle of red wine
Knorr Chicken stock stock pot
250ml cream
100g of parmesan grated
big bunch of basil
1. Brown beef ribs in very large pot with olive oil, then add mince and sausage meat squeezed out of their casings (if you don't have italian sausages i will often add some crushed fennel seeds at this stage to give them that italian fennel sausage vibes). I use a potato masher to break up all the meat but you can use the back of a spoon
2. Now add your onion, carrot and celery and sweat down for another 20mins until it's soft and translucent
3. Add the garlic and stir for a minute, then pour in the red wine, add chilli flakes to taste and salt and pepper
4. Let that bubble for a while then add the cans of tomatoes. Rinse the tomato cans out with water and add that water as well and throw in the chicken stock pot.
5. Cook on low for 4-5hours checking every 30mins or so that it's not getting too dry or catching at the bottom
6. When all the beef rib meat has cooked off the bones and is soft and broken up pull the bones out and discard.
7. Turn the heat off and stir in cream and grated parmesan and the torn basil leaves
8. Let cool and freeze in portions
