I once got so intoxicated I blacked out and couldn’t remember the entire night. When I woke up my friends kept raving about how I had gone to the shops with them, brought ingredients, and made the best pasta they ever ate in their lives.

I had no memory of making the pasta. Luckily, I found a shopping list receipt and some handwritten notes in my kitchen, and was able to recreate it. I’ve made it a few times since, it really is delicious.

A small improvement I’ve made since is to add some vinegar in the final step of preparing the sauce - this balances out the cream more.

Ingredients

Salt

1 Carrot - Grated

1 Large red onion - Diced

2 Cloves fresh garlic - Finely chopped

Chilli Infused Olive Oil - 2 Caps

Premium Mince (About 600 grams)

George Windhym 555 Shiraz - 2 Standard cups

Dutch spiced cheese - About 150 grams

Gouda - About 150 grams

Parmesan - About 50 grams freshly grated on a fine grater

Fresh basil - 1 Handful finely chopped

Fresh oregano - 1 Handful finely chopped

Fresh parsley - 1 Handful finely chopped

Cumin seed - 2 large pinches

Cinnamon - 2 large pinches

Dolmio bolognaise sauce - 1 jar

Thickened cream - 2/3 of a small tub

Pasta Rigatoni - 500g (Not egg pasta)

Garlic & chilli stuffed olives - Finely chopped

Anchovies - 1 Small can finely chopped

Recipe

1. Heat frying pan to 7/9 heat for about 3 minutes to get it quite hot
2. Add olive oil and swirl the pan around till the surface is created
3. Add the grated carrot, diced red onion and chopped garlic, along with a small pinch of salt
4. Stir a little and cook for around 5 minutes until the carrot starts to shrink and give off a fragrant odour
5. Add the 2 cups of wine and stir a few times
6. Once the wine starts to develop bubbles and boil add the beef. Use a wooden spoon over the next few minutes to break apart the beef and mix it evenly into the liquid. Add the cumin seed and cinnamon while doing this.
7. Once the mixture is homogenous and starts to develop a boil again add the jar of pasta sauce and stir in
8. Take the heat down lower to around 5-6/9 so that the sauce is not boiling viciously. You want to reduce it at a low heat so the meat doesn’t overcook and taste bad. It’s different in every pan but this process can take anywhere from 15-30 minutes. After about 10 minutes of the reducing process add the cream and stir it in, before you continue reducing.
9. When the sauce has about 5 minutes left to reduce boil a large pot of water and add quite a lot of salt. You want to use the biggest pot you have and get the water boiling viciously before the pasta is added. Pasta will take about 7-10 minutes to cook but you want to drain it at about the 6-7 minute mark so it still has a little bite to it. It will continue to soften because of its own residual heat.
10. Once the pasta is added to the pot immediately add the herbs, olives and anchovies to the sauce and stir. It should look pretty thick by this point.
11. Once the pasta is drained add it to the plates. Quickly stir about 1/4 of the non-parmesan cheee and serve immediately over the pasta. Garnish with the rest of the cheese and the parmesan.