This is a tasty meat sauce. Serve with pasta of choice or as filler in pitas or wraps.

Ingredients

• 15ml olive oil
• I tbsp. butter
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 stalk celery, finely chopped
• 1 medium carrot, grated
• 125g white mushrooms
• 2 big cloves of crushed garlic
• ¼ cup of chopped bacon bits or ham chunks or chorizo sausage
• 500g of mince
• 2,5ml of dried thyme
• Salt and black pepper to taste
• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
• 1 tbsp. of tomato paste
• 1 cup of beef stock
• 1 tbsp. wine
• 1 teaspoon of sugar

Method

• Heat the olive oil and butter.
• Fry the onion and celery until soft.
• Add the grated carrot and mushrooms. Cook until soft.
• Fry the garlic but don’t brown.
• Lightly fry the bacon, ham or chorizo.
• Cook the mince with the seasoning.
• Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, beef stock, wine and sugar.
• Simmer gently with the lid off for about 10 minutes.
• Continue to simmer with the lid on for about 40 minutes or until the mince is cooked.

Tips

• For a saucier sauce, add some water.
• Add some parmesan when serving with pasta.
• Blend the sauce if you want to make it smoother and the vegetables less visible.