Spaghetti Bolognisn't

[[Slight notes for this, as I've made it again. It scales up quite well, but don't overdo the lentils, and add the soya milk towards the beginning, otherwise you get something of a creamy sauce, which is nice but not really bolognese as I conceive it. There, now you know.]]

I attempted yesterday to make something that was a convincing Spaghetti Bolognese (without using any kind of vegan mince). Having made some curries a couple of weeks ago that seemed to work well (they thickened nicely, had a good texture, etc), I thought the general idea and base ingredients could be adapted to a bolognese sauce (Ragu): so, aside from tomatoes and all the normal stuff, the sauce is made from (and helpfully thickened by) red lentils and roasted aubergines.

The main problem is, of course, to make it taste and feel (to my beef-eating mouth) like a real bolognese sauce, and not such a mix of vegetables in tomato sauce. In short, aim for a semi-liquid Dhal, and make it taste as Italian as possible. The other main problem is to get a nice rich, deep flavour into it... for this reason I roasted the aubergines beforehand, used old tricks for incorporating that ol' umami flavour (soy sauce), resorted (technically hypocritically) to half a stock cube, and conveniently stumbled on some dried porcini mushrooms in the cupboard.

Once it was done, and mixed with the pasta, and coated with real parmesan (I'm not vegan... my housemate ate it with a Parmegianno impersonator), aside from the lack of beef, you would be hard pressed to notice the difference in the flavour.

Here goes:

Serves three or four, but add more ingredients as necessary.

Ingredients:

2 x aubergines (or more, if necessary)
nutmeg grindings (grate your own ideally)

two small onions (or one large)
three cloves of garlic
4 (or so) handfuls of red lentils
1 x tin of tomatoes
good squeeze of tomato purée
[or just use a jar of passata instead of tinned tomatoes and tomato purée]

herbs (ideally some fresh basil, and/or fresh oregano and/or fresh thyme... or sod it and use some dried oregano, basil and thyme... or a pot of mixed herbs)
soy sauce (about five drips)
half a vegetable stock cube (or about 200ml of vegetable stock)
half a handful of dried porcini mushrooms (put them in a cup of boiling water for ten minutes and keep the liquid!)
dash of red wine
teaspoon of sugar (lessens the tartness of the tomatoes)
dash of soya milk (gives a creamier texture)

five or six mushrooms

olive oil by the gallon
salt and pepper

and spaghetti, obviously (make sure it is not egg-based pasta, if cooking for vegans)


Method:

1) Preheat the oven to 200 C. Take out an oven dish.

Remove the top and the bottom of the aubergine, and cut lengthways into sixths or eigths.
Place the aubergine segments in the oven dish, inside-up.
Sprinkle some nutmeg over the aubergines, and season. Rub into the flesh.
In your most cheffy manner, drizzle the aubergines with olive oil.
Put them in the oven to roast. Keep an eye on them, and remove when nicely browned (slightly black at the extremities, possibly).

2) Finely dice the onion. Chop the garlic cloves into little specks, or put it through a press if you must.

Heat a couple of tablespoons of the olive oil in a deep frying pan. Add the onion, turn down the heat to medium, and cook for five minutes.
Add the garlic, and cook for two more minutes.

3) Add the lentils and tinned tomatoes (chopping them up if necessary beforehand, or just pummeling them with a sharp knife as long as your pan isn't non-stick).

Add a glassful of water. You will need to keep this topped up with liquid as it will suck up quite a lot. Add the red wine, too, at this stage, if you have your hands free.

4) Meanwhile... the aubergine should be nicely browning. Remove it from the oven, and (taking care, bloody hot) chop it into little cubes. Add this to the sauce. Return to the boil and allow to simmer gently. Putting a lid on the pan helps immensely.

5) Now you have a while to fiddle about, tasting extensively. Put the porcini mushrooms and the stock cube in a cup and add boiling water. Leave this for ten minutes for the mushrooms to soften up.

Add the soy sauce, a little soya milk, the teaspoon of sugar, the dried herbs, and some salt.

[If using fresh basil at the end I would still probably put in dried oregano and thyme at this stage.]

Add the porcini mushroom/stock mix (including the liquid).

7) Chop the normal mushrooms into small cubes and throw those in.

6) Keep the whole thing topped up with water, stir it occasionally... potter about, change the music to Stereolab or something. Maintain this state of affairs for a good hour at least.

Eventually the lentils will soften up quite a lot, the aubergine will break up a little.

Judge the optimum moment, then boil the water for the pasta.

7) As the pasta water comes to the boil, turn up the heat on the sauce and boil it down, stirring constantly. Add a good glug of olive oil and stir like crazy (I quite like doing this for all kinds of things: the sauce sort of fries in the oil as it thickens, giving it a darker colour and richer flavour). By this point it should look pretty convincing bolognese if you allow your eyes to slightly drift out of focus. Give it a good taste, seasoning as appropriate (if you're me, more salt).

If you've got a hand to spare, add the pasta now. If not, shout at someone else to do it.

Whilst the pasta is cooking, add another glug of olive oil if you feel like it. When it is quite thick indeed (slightly thinner than a dhal perhaps, but certainly no watery liquid swilling round). Turn the heat down. Give it a good taste at this point.

8) When the pasta is toothsome, as they say, drain the water and add it to the sauce (not the other way round, for some officious Italian reason I haven't quite understood: I think perhaps you just lose some of the sauce). Stir it all together, toss it with a big wooden fork if you've got one. Encourage mingling in any way you see fit. Don't forget to turn off the stove at this point.

9) Transport to bowls kept well away from white shirts. Sprinkle over some parmesan (or fake) and a grind of black pepper.

Eat with a fork whilst watching University Challenge.