Vegan ragout, bolognese sauce with mushrooms or soy mince

This sauce is so good that once you have tried it, you will want to make it in big batches and store it in the freezer for rainy days, just like I do now. It is so simple to make, but it will take around two hours of your time, if you want it to be seriously tasty. Use it for your favourite pasta dish or lasagne. The secret of this sauce is the long cooking time. Well, 1.5/2 hours isn’t actually that long, if you consider that proper Italian ragu’ was a delicacy served on special days, and is traditionally cooked for up to 8 hours! If you let this cool down and store in the fridge for one day, I promise you that it will get even tastier!

INGREDIENTS

1 large carrot, finely chopped

1 medium onion, finely chopped

1 large stalk of celery, finely chopped

300 g chestnut mushrooms, finely chopped or 3/4 cup soy mince

500 g passata

1-2 tbsp tomato puree

1-2 stalks Fresh rosemary

1-2 fresh sage leaves

½ cup of red wine (I use Merlot or Shiraz as this is what I like to drink)

1-2 tsp balsamic vinegar, to taste

½ tsp baking soda

Salt to taste

1-2 tbsp olive oil

Note: You can either use the mushrooms or substitute them for 1 + ½ cup of soy mince. I make this both ways with excellent results. It is totally up to you! If you do, make sure you use a very neutral tasting soy mince, I find the best one for this recipe is the one from Morrison’s meat free frozen section, both flavour and texture-wise. Also, if you do use soy mince, I would strongly recommend you to let the sauce rest in the fridge for 1 whole day (or even 2) before using it to allow all the flavours to mix together, making it far more enjoyable.

METHOD

1.Start by chopping the carrot, onion and celery finely and gently frying it in the olive oil. Be patient and do this on a low heat for around 10 minutes until the onions and celery are soft and translucent. 
2. In the meantime chops your mushrooms finely. No exact science here but you want them to have the same sort of size of mince when they are cooked, so keep this in mind (consider that they do shrink a little when they cook). 
If you are using soy mince, skip to step 3

3.Once the carrot, onion and celery mid is sufficiently cooked, turn up the heat to a medium to high and add the mushrooms. Cook them on a high flame to prevent them from releasing they water too quickly and becoming soggy. Move them around so they don’t burn or get stuck to the pan. Cook until they have shrunk and look sort of dry. 
If using soy meat, brown nicely until totally defrosted, around 3/4 minutes.

4. It is now time to add half a cup of decent quality red wine (ideally one that you like to drink) and let it evaporate almost fully on a high heat. 
5. Once the wine has almost all gone, you can add your tomato passata, the tomato puree, rosemary and sage, turn the heat to a minimum, place a lid the pan and let simmer for up to two hours. 
6. Keep an eye on it as you will certainly have to add some water regularly in order to keep it from drying out too much and sticking to the pan. I like it quite dense but you can make it as runny or thick as you like. 
7.When the sauce is cooked, you can add salt to taste, the balsamic vinegar and the baking soda, which will bubble up quite a lot but don’t worry! This is a normal reaction and is the sign that the baking soda is taking away some of the acidity from the tomato sauce.

Enjoy in your favourite pasta based dish, including lasagne and cannelloni!

Here is what it looked like in my lasagna dish, recipe up soon!