Chryssie Swarbrick

As a mother to two young boys, my current culinary experience seems to come down to trying to get my kids to eat more vegetables and them becoming increasingly more picky as time goes on.

Ingredients

• 200ml extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1.5kg mince meat (either 50-50 beef and pork or just beef)
• 1 whole brown onion
• 1 large carrot
• 1 zucchini
• 2 celery sticks
• 100g mushrooms
• 3 cloves crushed garlic
• 1 x 400g can of lentils, drained
• 70g tomato paste
• 1/2 cup of red wine
• 1 cup of water or stock
• Salt & pepper to taste

Method

Preparing the vegetables

1. In a food processor, blend onion, carrot, zucchini and celery until finely chopped
2. Heat half the olive oil & butter in a heavy pot.
3. Add the blended vegetable mix and cook 8–10 mins, adding a couple of twists of salt until all the moisture evaporates and it starts to caramelise
4. Puree mushrooms and drained lentils until very smooth (add some water one tablespoon at a time if necessary), then add to vegetable mix and cook off a few minutes. Turn heat down to lowest setting while you prepare the meat.

Preparing the meat

1. In a separate frypan, add the remaining olive oil and butter and brown mince well (in batches if needed), deeply caramelising.
2. If you are cooking in batches, add each batch of browned meat to the pot with the vegetables as it is ready – in your final batch, add garlic to the frypan and cook off for a minute until fragrant.
3. Add tomato paste to the meat, and cook off for a minute before adding the wine – let the wine deglaze the pan and cook off in the meat for a couple of minutes before adding everything from the frypan to the big pot with the vegetable mix.

Cooking the sauce

1. Add water or stock to the pot (start with 1 cup, add more if looking too dry) – remember that the meat and vegetables will release liquid as the sauce cooks.
2. Reduce heat and simmer low and slow 2–3 hours, stirring occasionally.
3. Adjust salt and pepper to taste (if in doubt, keep adding slightly more salt and tasting until you find the sweet spot) and finish with fresh basil or a drizzle of olive oil before serving.