So. I had a small pack of fresh lean minced beef, an onion, two carrots, a bulb of garlic and a small can of chopped tomatoes. Plus my trusty spice and herb cupboard. And my ever-faithful friend, a bottle of Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce.
I chopped the onion and carrots small, together with three cloves from my garlic bulb, plus one for luck, and blonded them in a couple of spoons of sunflower oil and one of olive oil, all in the stout saucepan I intended to use in the production of an old student days favourite: Savoury Mince.
When the onions had gone transparent I spooned the mince in a bit of a time, stirring it constantly. This way the mince doesn’t clump together.
I continue running the mix over a medium heat until the meat had changed colour from a fresh bloody red to a dismal meaty grey–the point at which it’s tempting to chuck the lot in the bin and go out for fish and chips. I had an appetite for home-cooking, though, so I resisted the urge.
Next, I added the chopped tomatoes, a few dashes of Worcestershire Sauce, and half a glass of white wine–didn’t have any red in the house. I let the whole render down for about ten minutes and gave it a taste test. I decided that the addition of a little minced garlic and some parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme was called for and that the mix needed a bit of gravy browning to give it a touch more character. That done, I added a dash of cold water to keep it from drying out, covered the saucepan and reduced the heat to low.
Another glass of wine to go with the half I had over from the recipe, and I sat down to watch half an hour of telly while the kitchen changed over from the sad smell of a soup kitchen to that of a cheerful, rich bubbly gimmee-gimmee promise of deliciousness.
On inspection after perhaps 45 minutes the job was done, just needed to continue rendering down with the lid off while I prepared and cooked a jacket potato and a quarter head of cabbage, stirring the savoury mix now and again to break up the skin that forms.
Half the mix, together with the potato and cabbage, made a man-sized meal, and the remaining half is chilling in the fridge, ready to pick up again on Sunday and turn into spaghetti bolognese.
I had a slice of nice wholemeal bread on the side to mop up any remaining gravy, not that there was a lot of that, and tucked in. It wasn’t until wiped my plate with the last of the bread and put my knife and fork down with a grateful sigh that I remembered I’d forgotten to take a photograph of it all.
Ah well, you can’t have everything.
