slow cooker

Fallow’s Restaurant Grade Spaghetti Bolognese

Watching my usual favourite recipe channels on YouTube; I was suggested a video “Why Restaurant Ragu Tastes So Much Better”.  I usually avoid clickbaity type titles, but with Bolognese/Ragu been one of my favourite dishes I curiously clicked on it.

And wow.

It was a complete eyeopener with new ingredients and techniques that I had to try.

Racing down to the store next day – I brought the ingredients that I was missing and cooked it that afternoon.

And it was going so well – every key point I was tasting and been blown away on how rich and meaty the ragu was tasting.

Until adding the “Gastrique.” 

It was a vinegar and sugar slurry that you add right at the end.  I should have trusted my instinct and used just a little touch; but my wife goes, “Follow the recipe and add it all in.”

The Gastrique overpowered the dish.  It was still tasty; but it was so much better before I added it in.

But I learnt so much and I will never look at spag bol the same again.

Original recipe

My version

This is my working version that I have modified from the original version. I will hone in the ingredient and steps on subsequent attempts.

Bold is something I have added from the original recipe
Strikethrough is something I have changed from the original recipe

Ingredients

  • 1 kg beef mince (50% shin, 50% chuck)
  • 400 g pork belly, diced
  • 100 g pancetta, diced
  • 200 g onion, finely diced
  • 150 g carrots, finely diced
  • 150 g celery, finely diced
  • 100 g Mushrooms, finely diced
  • 1–2 garlic cloves, finely grated
  • Extra virgin olive oil
  • Neutral oil
  • 80 g tomato purée one can of crushed tomatoes reduced down to a purée
  • 400 g passata
  • 200 ml red wine
  • 150 ml Whole milk (added in two stages)
  • ~500 ml chicken or beef stock
  • 1 Parmesan rind
  • 2 bay leaves
  • Pinch of nutmeg
  • Salt, to taste
  • Pepper, to taste

To finish

  • Cold butter
  • Extra milk
  • Gastrique: 100 g balsamic vinegar + 50 g sugar 50 g balsamic vinegar + 25 g sugar

Method

  1. On low heat, add olive oil and pancetta to a heavy pot and slowly render the fat.
  2. Add onion, carrot, mushroom and celery with a pinch of salt.
  3. Sweat gently until soft, pale and sweet, no colour.
  4. Grate in the garlic for the final 1–2 minutes, then remove the soffrito and set aside.
  5. Return the pot to high heat with a little neutral oil.
  6. Add the beef mince, breaking it up and cooking hot to drive off moisture.
  7. Once dry, lower the heat slightly and caramelise the beef slowly until deeply browned, scraping the fond regularly.
  8. Add the pork belly and gently warm through — no heavy browning.
  9. Stir in the tomato purée and cook until it darkens and caramelises.
  10. Lower the heat and add the first portion of milk. Let it fully absorb into the meat.
  11. Deglaze with red wine and reduce by about half, scraping the pan clean.
  12. Return the soffrito to the pot, then add passata, stock, Parmesan rind, bay leaves and a pinch of nutmeg.
  13. Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook in a low oven at 120°C for 4½ hours, stirring occasionally.
  14. While cooking, make a gastrique by boiling the vinegar and sugar briefly until lightly thickened.
  15. Once cooked, remove the bay leaves and Parmesan rind.
  16. Finish with a splash of milk, cold butter for gloss, and the gastrique added gradually to balance acidity.
  17. Season to taste.

May 4, 2026 by Cook

Jazzing up a Women’s Weekly slow cooker recipe

Since we have a “No Junk Mail” sticker on our mailbox – we’re deprived of the weekly “Aldi Specials” catalogue.

On the downside – we miss all the Aldi deals of items we didn’t think we would ever need.

On the plus side; when we do venture into Aldi – there is always a nice surprise to find what ludicrous bargains await us.

Recently there was a “Women’s Weekly Complete Slow Cooker Recipe” that I impulse bought for the tempting price of $20.

The recipes are inspirational; but not really refined.  Most of them follow the formula of; “Bung everything into a slow cooker & cook for eight hours.”

So as a challenge and a learning and teaching exercise; my wife picked out a recipe and keeping to the original ingredient list – I tried to bring out the best in the recipe.

Our base recipe #69: "Beef and Vegetable Soup"

Ingredients

  • 1kg Gravy beef – trimmed and cut into 2.5cm pieces
  • 1 garlic clove, crushed
  • 1 medium brown onion cut into 1cm pieces
  • 2 stalks of celery, trimmed, cut into 1cm pieces
  • 2 medium carrots, cut into 1cm pieces
  • 2 medium potatoes, cut into 1cm pieces
  • 400g canned diced tomatoes
  • 1L water
  • 2 cups of beef stock
  • 2 dried lay leaves
  • 1 cup of frozen peas
  • 1/3 cup coarsely chopped flat leave parsley 

Method

  1. Combine beef, garlic, onion, celery, carrot, potato, tomatoes, the water, stock and bay leaves in a 5-litre slow cooker.  Cook, covered on low, about 9 hours.
  2. Add peas to cooker, cook, covered, a further 30 minutes.
  3. Discard bay leaves.  Season to taste.
  4. Serve soup sprinkled with parsley.

Improving the recipe

There are three opportunities to add additional flavour to the recipe:

  1. Browning the meat
  2. Caramelising the onions
  3. Managing the cooking time of the other vegetables.

Browning the beef

This is the most obvious improvement; browning the meat before adding to the slow cooker.  Many slow cooker recipes call for the browning meat step; the Maillard reaction adds extra depth of flavour to the beef and the wider dish. 

So with care I browned the beef cubes in batches well in a fry pan over medium/medium-high heat.  Leave the burnt caramel bits in the bottom; we will use that for later.

Tackling the Onions

The onions are another chance to enrich the flavour of the soup.  Taking a cue from “French onion” soup; the idea is to slowly cook the onions to a rich caramel onion flavour.

Slice the onions thinly and then slowly brown them in the pan on a low heat.

Stir around to lift off any brown bits from the bottom to start forming a beef fond with the sweating of the onions and keep slowly cooking until it is a deep rich brown colour.

If the onions start to stick and threaten to burn; add a bit of water to loosen them off the bottom of the pan.

When the onions are almost done; add in the minced garlic and cook the raw edge off the garlic.

Add the caramel onion and garlic mixture to the slow cooker pot and then de-glaze the pan with a cup of beef stock.

Sacrificial stock vegetables

To preserve the texture of the carrots, celery and potatoes for the end and not cook the vegetables to a pulp; we’re going to use half of the carrots and celery as “sacrificial vegetables” to flavour the soup and then remove at the end; the same when making a stock.

You could when the cooking time is almost over; remove the cooked beef and blend the pulpy vegetables with a stick blender.

But this time I decided to give our worm farms a treat with cooked carrots and celery.

At the end – add freshly cubed potatoes, cook for 10min and then add cubed celery and carrots.

Cook until the vegetables are just cooked through – or until personal preference.

Add the peas right at the end to warm through.

In the end - is it worth it?

The soup was robust, tasty and put a smile on the family’s face.

But how much tastier than the base recipe – I couldn’t say.  I should have cooked the original recipe as a control; but couldn’t bring myself to throw beef into a slow cooker that hasn’t been browned.

One thing that was a standout was the time it took to prepare.  If preparing the original recipe; it could have been done within ten minutes. 

And that’s one of the key advantages of a slow cooker – throw ingredients quickly into a pot, let it run through the day and you have a tasty comforting meal in the evening time with little effort.

With my browning the meat in batches, the sweating and caramelising the onions; all of a sudden that 10min prep ballooned out to an hour. 

Is that extra 50min worth the extra taste; worth the time and effort invested?

I’ll leave it up to you dear readers to cook the recipe and find out yourself.

October 26, 2022 by Cook 0

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