Please tell me your slow cooker bolognese recipe!

[Flingmoo]

Don't want it to come out as watery/fatty tasteless mush. Got all the ingredients but not sure on method - to brown or not to brown?

I have these ingredients:

Lean mince
Pancetta cubes
Carrot
Celery
Passata
Stock, herbs etc
Wine

Thanks!

You shouldn't use wine etc in a slow cooker - it doesn't get hot enough to burn off the alcohol.

What you have sounds fine - I would fry the mince and pancetta first and drain if you don't want the sauce to be too fatty.

NB - celery is mostly water, so reduce the amount of extra water you add in stock, as again, slow cookers are not hot enough for much evaporation to occur.

Yy to browning the meat first, it gives a better flavour and you can pour the fat off. I always grate the carrots because the slow cooker isn't very good for cooking "solid" vegetables throughly.

I don't add stock to my bolognese, tomato puree, chopped tomatoes etc but never any additional liquid.

I cook mine on high and leave the lid off for 30 mins or so at the end to evaporate some of the excess liquid as well.....

I don't mind the fat and meat juice so don't brown it first (the beauty of slow cooker imo is that you don't have to faff with all of that)

I don't think wine is a problem in a slow cooker unless you are not allowed any alcohol at all .... alcoholics / religion - otherwise I think what remains after food has been thoroughly cooked will be fairly minimal.

Not in a slow cooker Jazz. That's my point. The sauce will taste too much of alcohol, rather than the taste of the wine.
Adds to the amount of liquid too - I'd leave it out in an SC.

perhaps my slow cooker cooks on a higher heat, but certainly never had a problem with any alcohol based slow cooked receipes either - beef in ale etc...

With a bolognese - a slop of wine won't make much difference either way really, if it's to hand I may rinse out a tin of chopped tomatoes with it etc....

Liquid does evaporate from a slow cooker, and it gets hot enough to boil water and cook - so something really shouldn't taste of alcohol if cooked for a decent amount of time.

..that's my experience of them anyway

Here's my recipe. I love it. Tastes even better the next day reheated and served on a baked potato.

Ingredients:
500g Mince
1 onion
1 red pepper
1 grated carrot
1 clove of garlic
1 can of chopped tomatoes
Mushrooms
Squirt of tomato purée
Dash of Worcester source
1 beef stock cube
Salt and pepper.

Brown the mince and onion and pepper then throw everything in the slow cooker and cook on low for 6 hours.

Thanks for the tips - it came out lovely in the end.

It's amazing how far 400g of mince will go in a bolognese sauce with carrots and celery. We had enough sauce for dinner for 2, lunch for 2 the next day, and a lasagne big enough to feed 3 for dinner the next day! (Used some cheese sauce I had leftover from a macaroni cheese I made too, easiest lasagne ever as the sauces were already made!)

Love it when things work out that way as we have an 8 month old baby so often too busy to cook anything elaborate!

Re wine ... you can use it if it bubbles on the high setting for a while (45 min - an hour). That will cook off the booze. Which is ok for a minimal fuss in all day slow cook but not if you want it upon return from work.