Ingredients
- 3/4 Kilos Ground Beef lean
- 1 Piece White Onion minced
- 2 Cloves garlic minced
- 1 Piece Carrot finely chopped
- 1 Piece Radish finely chopped
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- 1 Can Crushed Tomatoes
- 1/2 Cup Beef Stock
- 1/2 Cups Red Wine
- 2 Cups Parmesan cheese shaved
- Parsley chopped
- Salt to taste
- Pepper to taste
Instructions
- Season beef mince with salt and pepper.
- Add all ingredients except for parsley, parmesan, and ziti in a slow cooker. Cook on low for 5 hours.
- Cook ziti according to package instructions.
- Toss pasta with the sauce.
- Top with shaved parmesan cheese and chopped parsley.
This is heaven on a plate. It's meaty, it's rich, it's cheesy . . . what else could you crave for? It just amazes me how such a complex tasting dish would be so easy to prepare.
Let's start by seasoning the meat. You can't go wrong with a bit of salt and pepper. I chose to work with ground beef this time to shorten my cooking time, but chunks of beef would be ideal for a bourguignonne. This is basically a stew, a long cooking process, and would work effectively with even the toughest cuts of beef. For my mince, I asked my butcher for a 80/20 lean meat to fat ratio. The fat would render added richness to the dish and keep it from coming out too dry.
Though not necessary, I browned the meat a bit in a pan to develop a deeper color in my sauce and make the beef flavor more robust. Think of this step as something to the effect of searing meat for a stew or a roast.
Combine all ingredients in the crockpot, except for the parmesan cheese and the parsley, and it's done. It's basically just having to wait for all those flavors to come together into a very complex pasta sauce. I like the red wine to go into my pan first though to deglaze those bits that stuck at the bottom, and to reduce its acidity. Any red wine would do. A simple rule-of-thumb would be to use for cooking a wine that you would also enjoy drinking.
Set everything in a slow cooker on low for about five hours. Longer won't hurt. It would actually extract more flavor out of those vegetables. I've done a lot of slow cooker reviews here on FoodForNet, but naturally, I have a few of my favorites. My personal favorite for a medium sized cooker is the Crock-Pot touchscreen with a chrome finish. Wow, it's a beautiful slow cooker!
For a larger capacity, I like the Frigidaire Professional. It's programmable and very well designed. Can you tell I like the pretty ones?
If you're looking for something a bit more traditional, then the Crock-Pot SmartPot is a very good choice as well. The buttons make it simple to program your food very simply and you get the same Crock-Pot brand reliably.
Just before serving, prepare the pasta. I used Ziti particularly here for its shape. Those big tubes would certainly hold in much of the sauce giving more flavor with every bite. Pappardelle, Penne, Angel Hair would be excellent choices too. Even better, is too make your own dough if you happen to have a pasta roller.
Some tips on boiling pasta :
- You'll need about 3 liters of water for every kilo of raw pasta.
- Season the water with salt, lots of salt. It should literally be like taking a taste of ocean water.
- Make sure to drop your pasta in only as the water comes to a full boil.
- Do not add oil to the boiling water, nor toss your cooked pasta in oil after draining. The oil will prevent your sauce from adhering to the pasta.
- Drain your pasta immediately once al dente. It will continue to cook and end up soggy if you keep it in hot water.
When the sauce is done, toss the cooked pasta right in, coating every piece of Ziti evenly. Serve with a topping of chopped parsley, freshly shaved parmesan cheese, and a crouton on the side.
You may use other types of cheese for this. I would recommend hard grating cheeses though such as Gruyere or Manchego. For the herb, I would suggest freshly chopped Oregano or Marjoram other than parsley.
Ingredients
- 3/4 Kilos Ground Beef lean
- 1 Piece White Onion minced
- 2 Cloves garlic minced
- 1 Piece Carrot finely chopped
- 1 Piece Radish finely chopped
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- 1 Can Crushed Tomatoes
- 1/2 Cup Beef Stock
- 1/2 Cups Red Wine
- 2 Cups Parmesan cheese shaved
- Parsley chopped
- Salt to taste
- Pepper to taste
Instructions
- Season beef mince with salt and pepper.
- Add all ingredients except for parsley, parmesan, and ziti in a slow cooker. Cook on low for 5 hours.
- Cook ziti according to package instructions.
- Toss pasta with the sauce.
- Top with shaved parmesan cheese and chopped parsley.
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