The Real Deal

When I go to bed at night, my brain often churns my thoughts through. Filing the actions of the day I suppose and planning for the next. Strangely last night I was thinking of recipes. In particular, Spaghetti Bolognese. Weird you might think? Odd perhaps? Not for me, this often happens. I'll start thinking of the ingredients and ways to adapt and improve. A bit like my quest to find the perfect, melt in your mouth meatball. My Spag Bol recipe has been adapted and improved over time and has recently had a 1/2 cup of red wine added to give it more depth of flavour. It's yum! But as I lay in bed, I thought about how the Italians would do it. Probably vastly different from what the rest of the world do I thought.

Then a strange thing happens. I sat down 1/2 an hour ago and looked at the BBC News Website, which isn't an unusual thing to do whilst eating lunch. I saw the headline and watched this. Italian Chefs campaign for better Bolognese. Often these things happen to me. I'll dream of something or think of it then it crops up somewhere over the next day or so. I don't understand it myself, i just know it happens.

Back to the Bolognese. I was stunned to see that the authentic stuff has white wine and milk in it - milk! And that they serve it with Tagliatelle, not Spaghetti. When working I used to do the good old brown mince and chuck over a jar of dolmio. Being a stay at home Mum and Domestic Goddess in training, my glorious homemade version has the following...

Minced beef, onion, garlic, stock, tinned tomatoes and basil,, carrot, courgettes (for our 5+ a day), a dash of balsamic vinegar, sugar, red wine, salt and pepper.

I'm tempted to try an authentic recipe now just to compare. Hopefully then I could gloat that I like mine better - but then I'd have to come up with another name for it as Bolognese wouldn't fit.

What do you put in yours?